Heroes of the Nations 

A Series of Biographical Studies presenting the 
lives and work of certain representative histori- 
cal characters, about whom have gathered the 
traditions of the nations to which they belong, 
and who have, in the majority of instances, been 
accepted as types of the several national ideals. 



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•fceroeg of tbe fflations 

EDITED BY 

J£vclvn Hbbott, fl>.B, 

FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 



FACTA DUCIS VIVENT, OPEROSAQUi 
GiORIA RKRUM.--0VIO, IN LIVIAM, 26ft 

THE HERO'S DEEDS AND WARD-WON 
FAME SMALL LiVI. 



g<s 



CICERO 



Taf. X. 





CiCERO. 

k BUST NOW IN THE ROYAL GALLERY IN MADRID. 



CICERO 

AND 

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 



BY 
J. L. STRACHAN-DAVIDSON, M.A. 

FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRP STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

f fje JimcJurbocfttt |Jr*ss 
1903 



•CsS% 



Copyright, 1894 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
Entered at Stationers' Hall^ London 






Zbe ftntcfeerbocfeec prees, TUw J£or!i 




fcORE is known of Cicero than of 
any other person of the ancient 
world, and almost in proportion 
to the knowledge is the con- 
troversy of opinion concerning 
him. I formerly attempted a discus- 
sion of some disputed points in 
articles in the Quarterly Review (187$ and 
1880) on the writings of Mr. Froude and 
Mr. Beesley. Some paragraphs from 
these articles are incorporated in the present volume. 
Here, however, my business is not to criticise but to 
narrate, and I have refrained even from the con- 
futation of Drumann, with whose utterances I find 
myself at issue on almost every page. 

In writing Roman history it is impossible to 
escape from the influence of the genius of Mommsen. 
Sometimes by suggestion, sometimes by repulsion, 
his presence is always felt. I have likewise more 
especially to acknowledge the aid which I have 
received from the comments of Tyrrell and Purser, 
of Boissier, and of Watson. As a lecturer, constantly 
using Mr. Watson's Letters of Cieero for my 
text-book, I naturally appropriate the result of his 
labours, and cannot always clearly distinguish how 
much of my material is borrowed from him. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGB 

I.— cicero's training (106-74 b.c.) . . 1 

II. — ROMAN PARTIES AND STATESMEN (81-71 

B.C.) 24 

III. — CICERO AS AN ADVOCATE. ATTICUS. CICERO'S 

FAMILY (71-67 B.C.) .... 52 

IV. — CICERO AS A MAGISTRATE (69-63 B.C.) . 8l 

V. — CICERO AND CATILINE (63 B.C.). . . XIO 

VI.— CICERO'S IDEAL PARTY (63-60 B.C.) . . 159 

VII.— THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE (60-59 B - C -) • 2QI 

VIII. CICERO'S EXILE AND RETURN (58-56 B.C.) . 229 

IX. ROME AFTER THE CONFERENCE OF LUCA 

{56-52 B.C.) 262 

X. CICERO AS PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR. TIRO. 

CiELIUS. ROME ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL 

WAR (51-50 B.C.) 295 

XL THE CIVIL WAR (49-47 B.C.) . . . 323 

XII. CESAR'S DICTATORSHIP (47-44 B.C.) . . 345 

XIII. — CICERO AND ANTONY (44-43 B * C «) • • 3%° 

INDEX . . 431 

si 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FACE PAGB 

CICERO, FROM THE BUST IN THE ROYAL GALLERY 

in Madrid Frontispiece 

4 

IO 

36 



5* 



arpinum 1 Duruy 

CASCADE OF THE LIRIS .... Duruy 

SLING MISSILES FOUND AT ASCULUM . Duruy 

COIN STRUCK BY ITALIANS IN THE SOCIAL WAR. 

Duruy 

BUST OF HORTENSIUS, FROM BERNOUILLl's " Rd- 

rnische Ikonographie" 

COINS OF AGRIPPA AND DRUSUS 

COIN OF MITHRIDATES . 

COINS OF POMPEY . 

WALLS OF FiESULiE (fIESOLe) 

FRIEZE OF THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD 

THE TULLIANUM I ANCIENT PRISON OF 



BONA DEA : THE GODDESS OF FERTILITY Duruy 1 72 
COIN OF CAESAR, WITH HEAD OF VENUS Cohen 172 

ANCIENT ROMAN AS ... Bdbelon 200 



. . 


62 


8 Cohen 


76 


Duruy 


86 


3 Babelon 


86 


Duruy 


122 


Duruy 


138 


E KINGS. 




Duruy 


148 



1 Duruy's " History of Rome ." 

2 Cohen and Feuardent, "Description Historique des Monnaies 
Frappies sous V Empire Rotfiain" 

8 Babelon's * ' Description des Monnaies de la Republique Romaine, 1 * 



VI 



Illustrations. 



FACE PAGE 

THE THREE COLUMNS OF THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR. 

Duruy 232 
luca 

THE SHE-WOLF OF THE CAPITOL . 

RUINS OF THE CIRCUS OF BOVILLiE 

COIN OF CjESAR ..... 

COINS OF NERO AND AGRIPPINA . 

CiESAR, FROM THE BUST IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 

COINS OF CiESAR 

COINS OF CiESAR, BRUTUS, AND ANTONY Cohen 

coin of sextus pompeius . . . Bobelort 

THE YOUNG AUGUSTUS, FROM BAUMEISTER'S " Denk- 

rnaler des klassischen Altertums " . . . 

MAP OF THE CAMPAIGN ABOUT MUTINA . 



Duruy 264 

Duruy 282 

Duruy 286 

Cohen 326 

Cohen 326 

34<3 

35° 
382 
382 

394 
430 





CICERO, 



AND THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC 



CHAPTER I. 

CICERO'S TRAINING. 

106-74 B.C. 

HE purpose of this volume is 
to tell the story of Cicero's 
life, and at the same time to 
set forth from his writings a 
presentation of the concluding 
age of the Roman Republic, 
and to record the disastrous 
but not inglorious failure of 
the last Free State of the an- 
cient world. 
So far as may be, I propose to let Cicero himself 
speak to my readers. The "most eloquent of all 
the sons of Romulus/' as a contemporary poet * calls 

* Catullus, 49, 1. 




Cicerds Training. 



him, committed his orations to writing after their 
delivery, and gave them to the world. These 
speeches are public documents which were a living 
force in the practical politics of Rome; we must not 
expect absolute candour in words thus spoken and 
written for a purpose ; but it is much to know what 
were the assertions, the sentiments, and the reason- 
ings which rang in the ears of the Romans them- 
selves at this momentous crisis of their fate. Still 
more important for the purpose of our story are the 
private letters, and especially the letters to Atticus. 
We have before us the very words in which Cicero 
recorded his thoughts from day to day in all the 
confidence of intimate friendship. Cicero was not 
a man of cool and cautious temperament, afraid to 
commit himself to opinions, accurately weighing and 
discounting probabilities beforehand, or occupying 
by anticipation the province of the philosophical 
historian. From the letters of such a one we should 
have learnt comparatively little. We have to deal 
with a man of lively mind, quick to receive impres- 
sions, rushing to conclusions, garrulous in expression, 
and sensitively responsive to the prevailing temper 
or drift of opinion. In communing with Atticus 
he never pauses to make his writing self-consistent 
or plausible. Reasons " plentiful as blackberries" 
crowd through his mind as he writes, and the 
reasons of to-day will often not fit in with those 
of yesterday. There is no reticence, no economy of 
statement ; every passing fancy, every ebullition of 
temper, every varying mood of exultation and 
depression, every momentary view of men and 



.106 B.C.] Arpinum. 3 

things, finds itself accurately mirrored in these let- 
ters. The time lives again before us in the pages of 
Cicero, and, thanks to him, he and his contempora- 
ries are for us not mere lay-figures but actual flesh 
and blood. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on the third of 
January in the year 106 B.C., about the end of the 
war with Jugurtha. His forefathers had inhabited 
from time immemorial .the town of Arpinum in the 
Volscian mountains which part Latium from Cam- 
pania. Cicero was therefore a tribesman of the 
hardy race whose wars with Rome filled the early 
pages of Latin history. Some would have it * that 
he was a descendant of Aufidius or Attius Tullius, 
the Volscian partner and rival of Coriolanus. The 
struggle with Rome had ended more than 200 years 
before Cicero was born ; after generations of gallant 
resistance the Volscians of Arpinum were reduced 
to the lowly position of " citizens without the right 
of suffrage/* living under Roman law and serving 
in the Roman legions without political privileges 
either in their own town or in the capital. But the 
races predestined to political greatness possess the 
faculty of forgetting that which it is best not to 
remember ; and this invaluable gift of character was 
not wanting to the Volscians. The memory of their 
alien origin faded away, and they frankly accepted 
their place as humble members of the great Roman 
commonwealth. Their ambition now was to attain 
the full Roman citizenship, and Rome, at the begin- 
ning of the second century before Christ, was still 

* Plutarch, Cic %y I. 



Cicero s Training. 



wise enough to encourage and reward such aspira- 
tions. The full franchise was granted to the Arpi- 
nates in the year 188 B.C., shortly before the death 
of Hannibal and of Scipio Africanus. In the next 
generation the Romans deliberately set aside the 
wisdom of their ancestors, and adopted a system of 
harsh and rigid exclusion in the place of the liberal 
practice of gradually elevating aliens to the citizen- 
ship, by which the greatness of Rome had been built 
up. The punishment for this political crime came 
upon them when, a century after the enfranchise- 
ment of Arpinum, their Italian allies, after having in 
vain sought the citizenship by peaceful agitation, at 
length resolved to demand it at the point of the 
sword. During the Social War (B.C. 90 and 89) and 
during the civic conflicts which grew out of it, Rome 
tardily granted to the Italians, in the midst of her 
own ruin and theirs, the boon which, if accorded a 
few years earlier, would have averted irreparable 
disasters from the nation.* 

So far, however, as Arpinum was concerned, the 
old liberal policy of Rome had lasted just long 
enough to secure its inclusion ; and thus it came to 
pass that in her hour of peril Rome could reckon 
Caius Marius among her citizens. While Cicero was 
still an infant, the great soldier of Arpinum tri- 
f _ umphed over Jugurtha ; then re-elected 

Jan. x t X04 B.C. , 

during five successive years (B.C. 104- 
100) to the consulship, he crushed by two splendid 
victories the invading hordes of the Cimbri and Teu^ 



* See below, p. 1 1. 



Arpinum. 5 

tones and saved Rome in this her first conflict with 
the German race. 

Along with the full Roman franchise the Arpinates 
now enjoyed a considerable measure of local self- 
government. They were an organised community, 
capable of deciding local questions for themselves, 
and with their local politics and parties. We get an 
interesting glimpse of Arpinum in the second cen- 
tury B.C. from a passing notice which Cicero * gives 
of his family two generations back. " Our grand- 
father showed great qualities in the administration 
of this borough, opposing throughout his life his 
brother-in-law Gratidius, who wished to introduce 
elections by ballot. For Gratidius raised storms in 
a sauce-boat, as the saying goes, just as his son 
Mariusf did on the high seas. When the matter 
was reported to the consul Scaurus, he 

t 1 r- 1 - "5 B.C. 

remarked to our ancestor : ' Such prin- 
ciples and such firmness, Marcus Cicero, should have 
a field for their exercise by our side in the imperial 
politics of the capital rather than in the local politics 
of your borough/ " 

The contrast here marked between the central 
unity of Rome and the local life of the township, is 
a characteristic feature of these Italian " municipia." 
Arpinum was one of the earlier of these " borough- 



* De Leg., iii., 16, 36. 

f This Marius Gratidianus was a partisan of his great namesake 
and probably his kinsman by adoption. He was guilty of many out- 
rages during the domination of his faction, and was himself murdered 
with circumstances of much brutality by Catiline, when Sulla in turn 
triumphed. 



Cicero s Training. 



towns," but the whole of Italy was after the Social 
War organised on the same plan. Each community 
of newly enfranchised Romans had its own institu- 
tions, its own magistrates and its own local patriot- 
ism, which however did not interfere with the 
allegiance of every citizen to the city of Rome. 
" Every burgess of a corporate town," says Cicero,* 
" has, I take it, two father-lands, that of which he is 
a native, and that of which he is a citizen. I will 
never deny my allegiance to my native town, only I 
will never forget that Rome is my greater Father- 
land, and that Arpinum is but a portion of Rome." 
It will be noticed that while Cicero loves to call him- 
self an Arpinate, and exults to call himself a Roman, 
he has succeeded in quite forgetting that he is a 
Volscian. 

The insolence of the Roman nobles, especially if 
they happened to be of patrician blood, might some- 
times tempt them to sneer at the modern origin of 
these municipal Romans. Catiline could speak of 
Cicero as " a naturalised immigrant," and the young 
Manlius Torquatus, pleading against him at the bar, 
could describe his consulship as " the reign of an 
alien," because forsooth Cicero " came from a 
borough-town." " I will give you a piece of advice, 
my young friend," says Cicero in reply f ; " when 
you are to sue for office, do not use that expression 
about any of your competitors ; else you may find 
yourself swamped by the votes of the ' aliens/ " 

The statesman who came from a country-town in 



*De Leg„i\., 2, 5. 
f Pro Sulla, 8, 24. 



Arpinum. 



Italy was perhaps more than compensated for the 
lack of ancestral connection with the city of Rome, 
by the keen interest which his fellow-townsmen and 
neighbours took in his political career, by their pride 
and delight in his exploits, and by their anxiety for 
the reputation which reflected credit on their native 
place. In this respect the country-towns were in 
strong contrast with the civic and suburban districts, 
such as that of Tusculum, which were surfeited with 
famous and noble families and were careless about 
their local worthies. " This is our way," says 
Cicero,* pleading the cause of a client from his own 
Volscian district, " and this is the way of our native 
towns. Why need I speak of my brother and my- 
self? The very fields, if I may say so, and the 
mountains were partisans in our elections. Do you 
ever hear a Tusculan boasting of the great Marcus 
Cato, foremost though he was in every virtue, or of 
Coruncanius his fellow-townsman, or of all the 
famous men who have borne the name of Fulvius ? 
No one ever says a word about them. But if you 
are in company with any burgess of Arpinum, you 
will probably have to listen, however little you may 
like the topic, to something about me and my 
brother : most certainly you will not get off without 
some reference to Caius Marius. ,, " Our boroughs," 
he proceeds,f " lay great stress on the duties of neigh- 
bourship. In what I say about Plancius I am found- 
ing on what I experienced in my own case, for we 
are close neighbours of the Atinates. Most lauda- 



* Pro Plancio, 8, 20. 
f Pro Plancio, 9, 22. 



8 Cicero s Training. 

ble, or rather I should say lovable, is this feeling of 
good neighbourship, which keeps the constant 
fashion of the olden time, not shadowed by thoughts 
of evil, not practised in untruths, not veneered with 
false colours, undisciplined in the arts of the suburb 
and of the city. In all Arpinum there was not a 
man but strove his utmost for Plancius, not one in 
Sora, not one in Casinum, not one in Aquinum. All 
that well-peopled district of Venafrum and Allifae, 
all that rugged mountainous faithful plain-dealing 
clannish land of ours felt that it was honoured in 
his advancement and dignified in his dignity." 
Cicero himself shared the feelings which he so finely 
describes. It is always with a throb of pleasure 
that he betakes himself to his mountain home. 
"Ad montes patrios, et ad incunabula nostra'' In 
speaking of it he loves to borrow the language of 
the home-sick Ulysses as he sets his face toward 
Ithaca. " Rugged is she, but nurse of a worthy 
breed of sons ; never can I see anything to glad my 
heart like that land." The little town still stands in 
the Volscian highlands, and over its gate the traveller 
may read an inscription which the burgesses have 
put up to commemorate their two great townsmen 
Marius and Cicero. 

The family of Cicero had held for many genera- 
tions a place of honour and influence in this little 
community. They belonged to the upper-middle 
class in fortune and position, a class which (from a 
reminiscence of the time when wealth determined 
the nature of military service) the Romans named 
"the equestrian order." They had never ventured 



Arpinum. 9 



into the arena of national politics, or aspired to the 
magistracies of the imperial State. The family 
house, the actual birthplace of Cicero, was situated 
some three miles from the town on the banks of the 
river Fibrenus, an affluent of the Liris. The place 
may best be described in the words of Cicero him- 
self, who has made it the scene of his dialogue on 
the Laws. The second book of that treatise opens 
as follows : — 

Atticus. We have had enough walking, and you have come to a 
pause in your argument. What if we were to cross over and sit down 
to finish our conversation in the island of the Fibrenus — that, I think, 
is the name of this second stream ? 

Cicero. By all means, for this is my favourite spot whenever I 
want to think over anything quietly or to write or to read. 

Atticus. For my part, this is the first time I have been at the 
place, and I cannot have enough of it ; I think scorn now of splendid 
villas and marble pavements and fretted roofs. When one looks at 
this, one can only smile at the artificial canals which our fashionable 
friends call their " Nile " or their " Euripus." Just now when you 
were discussing law and jurisprudence you ascribed everything to 
nature ; and certainly in regard to these objects at any rate which we 
seek for the repose and refreshment of the mind, nature is the only 
true mistress. I used to wonder when I considered that there was 
nothing in this district but rocks and mountains, (so I gathered from 
your verses and speeches), I used to wonder, I say, that you so 
delighted in this spot. Now on the contrary my astonishment is that, 
when you are away from Rome, you can bear to be anywhere else 
but here. 

Cicero. Nay, whenever I am able to take a long absence from the 
city, especially if it be at this time of year, I seek this pleasant and 
healthy spot ; but it is not often that I have the chance. However I 
have another reason for loving it, which will not affect you so much. 

Atticus. What reason, pray? 

Cicero. Well, if the truth must be told, this and no other is the 
very native land of Quintus and myself : here is the ancient stock 
from which we are sprung, here are our sacred rites, here our kindred, 



io Cicero s Training. 

here countless traces of our ancestors. Just look at this country- 
house ; you see it, as it is now, enlarged by the care of my father, 
who having weak health passed almost all his life here in literary pur- 
suits ; but in this very house, I must tell you, when it was a little 
old-fashioned cottage, like that of Curius in the Sabine country, I 
was born. And so there is a something, some sort of lurking feeling 
and fancy, which seems to make me take a peculiar pleasure in it. 
And why not ? when we remember that the wise man of old is said to 
have rejected immortality that he might see Ithaca once more. 

The early years of Cicero were spent partly in his 
native hills, partly in Rome. He tells that, as far 
back as he can remember anything, he recollects the 
help and the encouragement which his childish 
efforts received from the poet Archias. Archias 
came to Rome in 102 B.C. (when Cicero would be 
four years old) and lived as an inmate of the house 
of Lucullus. When, forty years later, Cicero ap- 
peared as counsel for his old tutor, and successfully 
asserted his claims to the citizenship before a Roman 
law-court,* he told the jury that Archias had more 
right than any man living to claim the benefit of 
whatever skill in pleading he possessed, for it was 
Archias who had first implanted in him the love of 
those studies which had made him an orator. 
Throughout life Cicero was an omnivorous reader. 
His theory was that a man who wished to excel in 
oratory could not study too much nor make his 
range of culture too wide ; and we gather from his 
descriptions f that he and the group of cousins to 
which he belonged were trained from the first on 
this system. 



* See below, p. igo. 
\ De Oratore, ii., I. 




CO 



ui 

"■ * 
°^ 

Q 
< 



5 



Social War. 1 1 



Cicero entered on manhood in troublous times. 
The final defeat of the Cimbri in 101 B.C. and the dis- 
turbances at home which cost Saturninus his life in 
the next year had been followed by a period of com- 
parative quiet. But the precious time had been 
wasted ; the enfranchisement of the Italians had 
been vainly urged by the great tribune, Livius 
Drusus, who laid down his life in their cause, and now 
in the year 90 B.C., the seventeenth of Cicero's life, 
the obstinate apathy of Rome was rudely disturbed 
by the revolt of the Italian allies. In this war 
Cicero served his apprenticeship as a soldier. His 
references to personal recollections show that he 
was at one time with the northern army 

89 B.C. 

. under Pompeius Strabo,* and at another 

with the southern army under Sulla.f This was in 
the second year of the war. During the year 90 he 
remained in Rome and we find in the Brutus% a full 
account of the condition of things in 

& 90 B.C. 

the city and of his own way of life 
there. Cicero was eager to use his new emancipa- 
tion from boyhood by listening to the speeches of 
the best orators of the time. But all ordinary busi- 
ness was interrupted by the war; Hortensius, the 
rising light of the bar, was away with the army ; so 
was Sulpicius Rufus, the most distinguished among 
the men in middle life, and Antonius, the most 
famous orator of the seniors; Crassus, the great 
rival of Antonius, had died the year before. The 



* Philip. , xii., 11, 27. 

\ De Div., i., 33, 72. 
%BruL % 89. 



1 2 Cicero s Training. [90 B.& 

law-courts were closed with the exception of the 
Commission for High-treason. This court had 
been instituted by the democratic and equestrian * 
parties against those friends of Drusus whose policy 
would have averted the Social War, and who were 
now accused of having caused it. The noblest men 
in Rome were brought to the bar on the charge of 
having " incited the allies to revolt/' One of the 
victims was the orator Caius Cotta. " His exile," 
writes Cicero,f " just at the time when I was most 
anxious to hear him was the first untoward incident 
in my career." Cicero had to content himself with 
listening to the political harangues of the magis- 
trates. Of these there was no lack ; Varius, Carbo 
and Ctiaeus Pomponius " seemed," he says, " as if 
they had taken lodgings on the Rostra." Cicero at- 
tended them all diligently " and every day wrote 
and read and took notes." 

In the year 88 B.C. he studied the technical part of 
his art with the Rhodian rhetorician Molo, who was 
then visiting Rome. Philosophical training was sup- 
plied him first by the Athenian Academician Philo, 
(who fled from the disturbances of the Mithridatic 
War and took refuge at Rome in this year) and after- 
wards by the Stoic Diodotus. Diodotus became for 
many years an inmate of Cicero's house, and died 
there at last in the year 59, making his great pupil 
his heir. 

A yet more important aid to Cicero's mental de- 
velopment was the instruction which he received 

* See below, p. 35. 
\Brut. % 89. 



88 B.C.] His Teachers. 13 

from Scsevola the augur, the greatest lawyer of his 
time. " My father/' writes Cicero,* " immediately 
after I had put on the dress of manhood, introduced 
me to him, instructing me that, so far as I found it 
possible and was permitted to do so, I should remain 
continually at his side. And so I committed to 
memory many of his wise discourses and pithy say- 
ings, and strove to learn from his wisdom. " After 
the death of the augur (probably in the year 87) 
Cicero attended on his cousin and namesake Scae- 
vola the pontifex maximus, " whom above all others 
of our nation I venture to call the most eminent in 
talent and in justice." From these men Cicero w 
though he never professed the science of jurispru- 
dence, gained such a practical knowledge of the 
laws of his country, that he was well equipped for 
the duties of an advocate. 

The year of Sulla's first consulship (88 B.C.) marks 
the close of the Social War and the beginning of 
the yet more fatal Civil War which was its conse- 
quence. Now for the first time Roman armies were 
ranged against one another on the battle-field ; the 
leaders of the Jbeaten party were executed by public 
authority and their heads exposed on the Rostra as 
those of enemies of the State. This year saw the 
first victory of Sulla, the next year the return of 
Marius. Both made havoc amongst the most bril- 
liant orators of Rome. Sulpicius Rufus, Antonius, 
Catulus, and Caius Julius (whom Cicero brings to- 
gether, along with Crassus, as the personages of his 
dialogue De Or at ore) had all perished before quiet 

* De Amicitia, I, I. 



14 Cicero's Training. [81 B.C. 

was restored for a time in the year 86. Cotta was 
still in exile, and for the next three years Hortensius 
was almost without a rival at the bar. Then with the 
return of Sulla from the East in 83 the civil wars 
and massacres began again, ending at last with the 
re-establishment by Sulla of the oligarchical con- 
stitution. 

Just upon the close of this period of disorder, 
about the year 81 B.C., Cicero after his long prelimi- 
nary training began to speak in the law-courts. He 
was now about twenty-five years of age. An early 
speech is preserved to us from a suit in which the 
young advocate matched himself for the first time 
with Hortensius. He repeatedly refers to his timid- 
ity on this occasion, and says * that when his friend 
Roscius, the great comic actor, urged him to the 
attempt, he replied, u that he fears he will seem as 
impudent as a man who should strive for the palm 
of comedy with Roscius himself. ,, Elsewhere f he 
relates that he was ambitious to imitate the two 
leaders of the bar (for Cotta had now been restored 
by Sulla), but of the two he considered Hortensius 
the better model. 

Next year Cicero had the opportunity of estab- 
lishing once for all his own position as a great advo- 
cate. During Sulla's reign of terror, 
legalised murder had been an every- 
day occurrence in Rome, and it was not easy to 
confine the slaughter within the precise limits which 
the Dictator ordained. In the midst of the confu- 



* Pro Quinctio y 24, 77. 
f Brutus t 92, 317. 



80 B.C.] Roscius of A meria. 1 5 

sion, when the city was full of gangs of assassins 
hunting down their victims for the sake of the blood- 
money promised by the government, Sextus Roscius, 
a wealthy citizen of Ameria, who had served in 
Sulla's army and had come to Rome after his vic- 
tory, was murdered in the street as he returned 
home from supper. The assassins were neighbours 
and distant kinsmen who had been on bad terms 
with the murdered man. These men next applied 
to Chrysogonus, a favourite freedman of the Dicta- 
tor, and induced him to get the name of Roscius 
inserted in the Proscription list. His property was 
thereupon confiscated and sold en bloc at a sham 
auction ; Chrysogonus was the buyer, and paid into 
the treasury the sum of ^20 as the purchase 
money of an estate worth ^60,000. He then con- 
stituted the murderers his agents and employed 
them to oust from his father's house the only son 
of the deceased, who had remained throughout in 
his country-seat at Ameria. Chrysogonus and his 
associates now divided the property at their lei- 
sure. But they could not feel quite sure that the 
son, named like his father Sextus Roscius, would not 
one day call •them to account. To assassinate him, 
now that times were quieter, was not so easy ; so 
they adopted the plan of accusing him of being the 
murderer of his father. If they could procure his 
condemnation on a capital charge, he would, even if 
he evaded actual execution by exile, be quite power- 
less to annoy them in the future. It mattered little 
to the promoters of the accusation, that they were 
notoriously in possession of the property of the de- 



1 6 Cicero s Training. [so B.C. 

ceased, and that if he had come to his death, as they 
now pretended, by the parricidal machinations of 
his own son, his goods could not be liable to confis- 
cation as those of a proscribed person. They calcu- 
lated that this side of the story would never come 
out in court. No advocate, they thought, would 
venture to say a word of the Proscription, of the 
confiscation of the property, and of its purchase for 
an old song by Chrysogonus. How could any one 
insist on these points without openly attacking the 
Dictator's favourite ? and to attack the favourite was 
to brave the displeasure of his terrible master. 

This was Cicero's opportunity. While all Rome 
lay crushed and silent at Sulla's feet, this young 
advocate alone dared to set himself in opposition to 
the Regent's pleasure. In the first five minutes of 
his speech Cicero had cast away all disguise, and 
grappled openly with Chrysogonus. 

" Chrysogonus asks you, gentlemen of the jury, 
that forasmuch as he has made himself master of so 
ample a fortune, which belongs by right to another 
man, and forasmuch as he is hindered and ham- 
pered in the enjoyment of that fortune by the fact 
that Sextus Roscius lives, he asks y6u, I say, to 
relieve his mind from every shade of doubt and 
anxiety. While Roscius is a citizen, he does not 
think that he can keep hold of Roscius' rich and 
splendid inheritance ; if only Roscius be condemned 
and cast forth from society, then he hopes that he 
may be able to squander in luxury and profusion 
that which he has won by crime. He begs you, 
gentlemen, to pluck from his bosom this rooted 



80 B.C.] Defence of Roscius. 1 7 

distrust which frets and plagues him night and day, 
and to lend yourselves to secure him his ill-gotten 
gain/' * 

Cicero modestly ascribes it to his own obscurity 
that he is privileged to appear as the champion of 
such a capse, while all the leading advocates shrank 
from the undertaking; " my plain-speaking may be 
unobserved because I have as yet no pretensions to 
be a statesman, or it may be pardoned in considera- 
tion of my youth — though, to be sure, the notion of 
pardoning and even the practice of judging has faded 
from the memory of the Republic." f That day was 
the last on which Cicero could plead the security 
of insignificance. He left the court a man of mark 
in Rome. He had done more than save his client ; 
he had given voice to feelings which all the world 
must needs smother in silence ; he had struck a key- 
note which vibrated in a thousand hearts, sick of 
bloodshed and robbery and terror. 

All this required not only great boldness but great 
skill. He was pleading before a bench of senators, 
newly re-established in the law-courts by Sulla, who 
would not be likely to tolerate from a young man of 
equestrian family anything which implied disap- 
proval of the Restoration or disrespect towards the 
government. Nevertheless, with the instinct of a 
great pleader, Cicero seems to have felt the pulse of 
the jury as he proceeded. He begins by protesting 
that he will touch on politics only so far as is abso- 
lutely necessary for his case ; he ends by claiming 



* Pro Rose, Amer. y 2, 6. 
f Pro Pose, Amer., I, 3. 



1 8 Cicerds Training. [80 B.C. 

that he may speak not only for his client but for 
himself. " On what seems to me shameful and in- 
tolerable, on what, as I think, will touch us all unless 
we provide against it, on this I will make my utter- 
ance in all the sincerity of my heart and from all 
the bitterness of my soul. ,, * % 

Of Sulla himself, whose carelessness and indiffer- 
ence allow creatures like Chrysogonus to batten on 
the Commonwealth, Cicero speaks with an apparent 
respect which really covers the sharpest censure. 
" Rascally freedmen," he says,f " always try to throw 
the responsibility for their misdeeds on their patron ; 
but all the world knows that many things have been 
done, of which Sulla is only half aware. Are we to 
approve then, if some such acts are passed over 
because he does not know about them ? We cannot 
approve ; but it cannot be helped. Jupiter reigns 
above ; yet we have men injured, and cities ruined, 
and crops lost by hurricanes or floods or extremes 
of heat and cold. We do not attribute these mis- 
chiefs to the intention of the god, but to the force 
of circumstances and to the magnitude of the uni- 
verse over which he has to preside, while we acknowl- 
edge his hand in the blessings we receive. And so 
it is with Sulla/* 

But if Cicero affects to screen Sulla under this 
contemptuous apology, he condescends to no half- 
measures when he deals with his favourite. 

" Let the leaders of the party look to it, whether 
this be not a sad and shameful conclusion, that 



* Pro Rose. Amer., 44, 129. 
\ Pro Rose. Amer. y 45, 130. 



so B.C.] Defence of Roscius. 1 9 

those who could not bear to see the Roman Knights 
in the pride of place,* should brook the tyranny of 
this vile slave. Hitherto, gentlemen of the jury, this 
tyranny has been exercised in other spheres. Now 
you see what path it is shaping for itself, at what goal 
it aims ; it aims at your honour, your oath, your 
verdict, that is to say, at almost all that remains 
sound and uncontaminated in the State. Think, 
that on that judgment-seat Chrysogonus believes 
that he will work his will, that here too he can hold 
sway. O the misery and the bitterness of it ! It is 
not that I fear that he will have such power. What 
cuts me to the quick is that he has presumed, that 
he has hoped to compass, by means of such a bench 
as that which I see before me, the condemnation of 
an innocent man. That is the burden of my com- 
plaint. Was it for this that the nobility aroused 
itself and won back the State at the point of the 
sword ? Was it in order that the menials and lackeys 
of the great should be able to harry the goods and 
the honour of us and you alike ? " f 

Of even greater weight are the words of warning 
with which the speech concludes : 

" Men of wisdom, men endowed with the place 
and the power which you occupy, are bound to 
apply the appropriate remedies to the disease of 
which the State is sickening. There is no one of 
you but knows well, that the Roman people, which 
formerly had the reputation of being most placable 
towards its enemies, labours to-day under the curse 



* See below, p. 34. 

f Pro Rose. Amer m% 4S, 140. 



20 Cicero s Training. [80 B.C. 

of cruelty to its own children. Remove this cruelty 
from the State, gentlemen of the jury ; suffer it no 
longer to work its pleasure in this Commonwealth. 
It is a vice which is mischievous, not only in that it 
has swept off so many of our fellow-citizens under 
every circumstance of horror, but likewise because 
by the daily spectacle of painful sights it has made 
the tenderest hearts callous to the sense of pity. 
For when each hour we see or hear of some fresh 
atrocity, even though nature has made us mild of 
mood, familiarity with dreadful deeds plucks all 
feelings of humanity from our minds/' * 

In later life Cicero criticised f the style of this his 
early effort at oratory, which he found too florid and 
exaggerated for his more matured taste. For all 
that, the speech is full of vigour and promise ; and 
the situation was so critical and momentous, that 
every sentence struck home. Rome was conscious 
that yet another brave man and great orator had 
been born among her sons. We can well believe 
that "the speech met with such approval, that from 
that time no case was deemed too important to be 
committed to my charge." % 

Nevertheless the acquittal of Roscius was soon fol- 
lowed by Cicero's temporary retirement from the 
bar. The circumstances may best be recorded in his 
own words § : "At that time my body was very thin 
and weak, my neck long and slender ; and a frame 



* Pro Rose. Amer. y 53, 154. 
f Orator, 30, 107. 
% Brut., 90, 312. 
$£rut. t 91, 313. 



78 B.C.] Molo of Rhodes. 21 

like this, if exposed to over-exertion and strain of 
the lungs, is reckoned to incur fatal risks. My friends 
were the more anxious about me because my prac- 
tice was to speak without any relief from change of 
tones, but always at the full stretch of my powers of 
voice and straining my whole body to the uttermost. 
They and the physicians urged me to give up speak- 
ing at the bar ; but I felt that I would rather run 
any risks than renounce my ambitious hopes of 
being an orator. I reflected, however, that by 
changing my style of speaking and by lowering and 
regulating my voice, I might both avoid the danger 
to my health, and likewise bring my utterances bet- 
ter within compass. It was this purpose of a change 
in my habits of speaking that made me resolve on a 
journey to Asia. So after I had been two years at 
the bar, and had already some reputation in the 
courts, I set forth from Rome." Some account of 
his studies at Athens and in Asia Minor follows, and 
he continues : " Not content with these I came to 
Rhodes and resorted to Molo, the same whose pupil 
I had formerly been at Rome. Molo was not only 
an eminent writer and pleader in actual suits at the 
bar, but he had a rare skill in noting and correcting 
faults and in conveying instruction. He exerted all 
his powers in checking and keeping within bounds 
my tendency to exaggerate and to overflow, as it 
were, with a certain youthful hardihood and license 
of speech. I returned home after two years' ab- 
sence, not only a more practised rhetorician, but 
almost a changed man. The over-straining of the 
voice had abated, my style had lost its frothiness, my 



22 Cicero s Training. [75 B.C. 

lungs had grown stronger, and my bodily frame was 
moderately filled out. ,, 

Cicero was now fully established as one of the 

leaders of the bar along with Cotta and Hortensius, 

and was constantly employed in the most important 

cases. All three were candidates for 

76 B.C. 

office in the year following Cicero's 
return to Italy. Cotta gained the consulship, Hor- 
tensius the office of curule aedile, and Cicero that of 
qusestor. Under Sulla's constitution twenty quaestors 
were elected for each year, and each quaestor when 
his term of magistracy was over passed on to the 
benches of the Senate, where he had now a seat for 

life. Meanwhile Cicero's official duties 
75 b.c. . . , , . , 

sent him to spend the year 75 outside 

of Italy. The lot gave him as his province the 

western portion of Sicily with Lilybaeum for his 

headquarters. The other side of the island (though 

one praetor ruled the whole) had a separate quaestor 

who resided at Syracuse. It is necessary to make 

this point clear for the understanding of an amusing 

anecdote, which Cicero * tells against himself by way 

of illustrating to a jury the small attention paid in 

the capital to provincial concerns and provincial 

reputations. The experience is one which many an 

Indian Commissioner will recognise with a sigh. 

" Now, gentlemen, I will make a clean breast of 

it, and confess that I thought at the 

74 B.C. ** 

time that people in Rome were talk- 
ing of nothing but my quaestorship. During a 
season of dearth I had forwarded a great supply of 

* Pro Plancio, 26, 64. 



74 B.C.J The Quczstor ship. 23 

grain to the capital. I had been obliging to the 
dealers, fair to the merchants, liberal to the country 
people, scrupulous towards our allies, and all agreed 
that I had been faithful in every duty of my office. 
The Sicilians had devised compliments for me quite 
out of the common. And so I returned home in 
the expectation that the Roman people would come 
and lay the world at my feet. But it so happened 
that in the course of my journey I arrived at Puteoli, 
in the height of the season when it was full of per- 
sons of the first fashion. Well, gentlemen, you 
might have knocked me down with a feather when 
one of these came up and asked, on what day I had 
left Rome and what was the last news there? 'I 
am returning/ I replied, l from my province/ 'O 
yes, of course/ says he, i from Africa, I think/ Ut- 
terly vexed and disgusted, I said, ' No, from Sicily/ 
Then another, who wished to play the well-informed 
man, put in : ' What, don't you know/ says he, ' that 
our friend here has been quaestor at Syracuse ? ' Not 
to make a long story of it, I pocketed my vexation, 
and lost myself among the crowd of those who had 
come to take the waters." 

Cicero was thirty-two years of age when, after this 
adventure, he returned once more to Rome in the year 
74 B.C. As a senator, it was time for him to choose 
a side and to make his influence felt in the affairs of 
state. To gain a clear conception of the political 
arena on which Cicero is now entering, it will be 
necessary to consider what were the parties and who 
the statesmen with whom he was to be engaged. 



CHAPTER II. 

ROMAN PARTIES AND STATESMEN. 
81-71 B.C. 




HEN Cicero entered on public 
life the government was in 
the full possession of the 
" Optimates " or Notables, 
and of the Senate in which 
they reigned supreme. These 
Nobles inherited the splendid 
traditions of their ancestors 
who had made Rome great 
in the century of the Punic 
and Macedonian wars. At that epoch a ring of 
great families, some patrician and some 
plebeian, had been set in a position of 
eminence, not by any invidious prerogative, but by 
the natural process of the working forces of the 
constitution. Every man was " noble " who could 
count curule magistrates among his ancestors, and 
he was most noble whose hall showed the greatest 
number of family portraits of consuls and censors. 
Power and influence accrued to the men who had 

24 



250-150 B.C. 



The Nobles. 25 



led the Roman armies in their triumphal march over 
the civilised world, and this power and influence 
they handed on to their descendants. There was 
likewise among the Romans a strong public opinion 
in^favour of a man's sitting in the seat of his fathers. 
There was no occasion for the Nobles to assert by 
law their exclusive right to the highest offices, for 
the electors would hardly look at any candidate who 
had not ancestral claims on their attention. It was 
perfectly legal indeed, for " the son of a Roman 
Knight " — in other words, for one who did not 
belong to the official caste — to contend for high 
office with a Noble ; but he would find that the 
stars in their courses fought against the " new man." 
" Fato Romae fiunt Metelli consules" — Providence 
always sends the great Noble, the Caecilius Metel- 
lus, to the head of the polL To dream of clearing 
in a single generation the space that lies between 
the Roman Knight and the consul is an insolence 
which is to be suppressed by the united force of the 
Nobility, and which is looked on with disfavour even 
amongst the ranks from which the candidate is 
struggling to emerge. 

Thus the Roman Nobles became in fact though 
not in law an hereditary caste of office-holding fami- 
lies. In their best days they had all the great 
qualities of an oligarchy — high spirit, steadiness of 
purpose, persistence under difficulties, trained sa- 
gacity in war and diplomacy. The Nobility repre- 
sented Rome in a stronger and loftier spirit than any 
popular organisation could have done, and the 
Romans were proud to follow its lead and to accept 



26 Roman Parties. 



as their own the majestic policy which the Senate 
announced by word and deed. 

During the latter half of the second century the 
Nobility shows in a less favourable 

150-100 B.C. . 

light. It failed to deal with the com- 
plicated questions which presented themselves as 
the result of conquest, especially the agrarian ques- 
tion and the question of the Italian allies. Thus 
the statesmen who undertook to solve these prob- 
lems naturally drifted into opposition, and from op- 
position into revolution. The Roman constitution 
gave fatal facilities for such a development. It had 
the theory of popular sovereignty without any ma- 
chinery for realising that sovereignty in fact. The 
power of the people was nullified by the dangerous 
fiction that the whole nation could assemble in the 
Forum, and that an affirmative answer to the ques- 
tion put by a magistrate to such a casual gathering 
made the proposal into law, absolute and indefeasi- 
ble. The machinery, like that of the French plebis- 
cite, was fitted not to express the popular will, but 
to give opportunities for a despotism. Unlimited 
power would be lodged in the hands of any magis- 
trate who could organise the city rabble, if only he 
were unchecked in his right of initiating proposals. 
To avoid this consequence, the Romans gave the 
legal power of initiative, not to one man or to any 
body of men collectively, but to each one of a num- 
ber of annual magistrates, consuls, praetors, and 
tribunes, and they further gave to each of them 
singly an absolute right of veto over the action of 
any or of all his colleagues. The result was to throw 



The Democrats, 2 J 



the constitutional control into the hands of the per- 
manent advising board, the Senate of Nobles. Con- 
stitutional usage obliged the magistrate to employ 
his power of initiative only in accordance with the 
advice of the Senate ; if he declined to do so, his ac- 
tion was at once paralysed by the veto, and he must 
either submit * or else incur the guilt and danger of 
an actual breach of the law. Thus, so long as a 
single tribune remained loyal, the Senate would 
govern Rome in peace. 

The whole constitutional fabric rested on the ab- 
solute sanctity of the veto. In the controversies of 
the Gracchi and their successors with the Senate, 
this ultimate safeguard of the constitution was vio- 
lated and so the Revolution began. But while they 
impaired the oligarchical constitution, the demo- 
crats failed in all efforts to set up a new one in its 
place. Notwithstanding its formally recognised 
sovereignty, the Assembly was too uncertain and 
too little representative of the whole people to be 
able either to check its leaders or to give them any 
effective support in the hour of danger. The dema- 
gogues were for the moment irresponsible despots 
in the midst of a dependent crowd, and for that very 
reason they had no reserve force of organised public 
opinion on which to fall back. The democracy in 
its impotence turned to a military chief, and at- 
tained by this evil alliance a brief supremacy under 
the leadership of Marius and of his successor Cinna. 



* As for instance Scipio Africanus was obliged to do when he tried 
to override the Senate in his first consulship, 205 B.C. ; see Livy, 
xxviii., 45. 



28 Roman Parties. [81 B.C.- 

But the revolutionists proved themselves unworthy 
to rule ; they resorted to bloodshed and plunder ; 
they governed yet more despotically than their 
rivals had done, and without the softening effect of 
ancestral custom and historic dignity to relieve the 
naked harshness of their domination. This party 
fell ingloriously and without regret before the swords 
of Sulla's veterans when he returned from the East 
in 83 B.C. 

An unlimited power for the reconstruction of the 
State was lodged in the hands of Sulla. Avowedly 
the partisan of a Restoration, he attempted little 
that was original in substance, though many of his 
regulations were new in form. He desired to revive, 
so far as possible, the Rome which had been before 
the Gracchi with such variations in detail and such 
safeguards against revolution as seemed to be sug 
gested by the experience of the last half-century. 
The senators were Jienceforth to have exclusive 
possession of the jury-courts, the corn-distributions 
instituted by Gracchus were abolished, and the 
tribunate which had been used as an instrument of 
revolution was strictly curbed. The constitutional 
obligation which lay on the tribune to use his initia- 
tive power only with the approval of the Senate, was 
no longer left to be enforced by the uncertain and, 
as it had proved, insufficient sanction of the veto, 
but was raised to the level of positive law ; the pro- 
posal of a bill to the Plebs was now null and void, 
unless it had received the previous assent of the 
Senate. Within the Senate itself precautions were 
taken to prevent any one man from aspiring to rise 



71 B.C.] The Equestrian Order. 29 

above the little circle of his peers ; the offices of the 
State must be held at fixed intervals, and no man 
might hold the same office twice except after the 
lapse of ten years. Free popular election of the 
magistrates was still allowed. Long experience had 
shown that this was not really dangerous to the 
supremacy of the Nobles, and that the influence of 
the great families would secure them a practical 
monopoly of the highest offices. 

Such was the constitution of the Republic when 
Cicero became a senator. His bold defence of Ros- 
cius had marked him out as a future leader of oppo- 
sition. Indeed, from his position and circumstances 
he could not well be otherwise. His sympathies 
were naturally on the side of the equestrian order 
from which he had sprung, and that order was now 
in a state of discontent and hostility to the govern- 
ment. For an explanation we must look back a 
little in the history. 

The Roman Nobility was, as we have seen, a No- 
bility of office ; and public opinion as well as positive 
law prescribed that this official caste should confine 
itself to the business of war and government, and 
should hold aloof from trade and banking, and more 
especially from speculations connected with state- 
contracts. All these fell into the hands of another 
set of families, which constituted in its turn a sort 
of high mercantile caste. As the armies of Rome 
spread her power over the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, her commerce increased likewise, and so did 
the complexity and magnitude of her financial 
arrangements : all this added to the importance of 



30 Roman Parties. 



the second order in the State. Its members were 
necessarily men of wealth and substance, and neces- 
sarily likewise they were men who renounced the 
chances held out to ambition by the official career 
of magistracy. The new order borrowed a name 
from the centuries of Knights, which had originally 
formed the cavalry of the State, and for which 
a high property qualification was required. Every 
Roman who was in possession of the requi- 
site property (about ^4000),^ and who had never 
held a magistracy or sat in the Senate, now called 
himself a " Roman Knight/' The phrase implies 
pretty much what we mean when we speak of a 
"private gentleman. " The consolidation of the 
order is due to Caius Gracchus. He gave the 
Knights outward signs of distinction, the narrow 
hem of purple on the tunic, the gold ring, and the 
right to reserved seats, immediately behind the sena- 
torial stalls, in the theatre ; he multiplied their in- 
fluence and their gains by ordering the collection of 
the taxes of Rome's new province of Asia to be 
farmed out to them ; and above all he gave them a 
controlling power over the Nobles, by bestowing on 
them the exclusive right to sit as jurors in the crimi- 
nal courts. 

This order occupied a position midway between 
the ruling senatorial families and the mass of the 



* Throughout this volume I count 100 sesterces as equal to £\ ster- 
ling, and an Attic talent as equal to ^250. This is a rough com- 
promise between the weight of gold and the weight of silver in the 
sums named. In the ancient world gold was worth only about twelve 
iime its weight in silver. 




The Equestrian Order. 31 

people. It was strong enough to give a preponder- 
ating power to whichever of the extreme parties it 
might favour for the moment ; and, as its interests 
were in many respects identical with those of the 
Commonwealth, it seemed as if this influence was 
likely to be used for good. To men of substance, 
engaged in commerce and banking at Rome and 
throughout the civilised world, public order and the 
maintenance of credit were matters of prime im- 
portance. Whenever the democratic 

r 1 to- IOO B.C. 

factions resorted, as under baturninus, 
to riot and bloodshed in the streets, the Knights 
took sides with the Senate against the disturbers 
of the peace. When the slackness of the Senate 
allowed piracy to get the upper hand in the Medi- 
terranean or when its leaders pocketed Jugurtha's 
bribes, while he was cutting the throats of Roman 
merchants in Africa, the Knights bestirred them- 
selves and gave valuable support to the democratic 
opposition. Unhappily there were other considera- 
tions which touched them more nearly. In the first 
place the State-contracts were their monopoly, and 
the equestrian order was apt to be the humble ser- 
vant of whichever party promised the best bargains. 
Scarcely less important were its interests in the 
provincial administration. The Roman Knights 
trafficked with and lent money to the subjects of 
the Republic ; they had control of the lucrative 
slave-trade ; they collected from the provincials the 
taxes which had been farmed from the Roman treas- 
ury, or which had been pledged to them as security 
(or debt by the local exchequers of client kings and 



32 Roman Parties. 



conquered civic communities. All controversies 
arising out of these matters fell under the cognisance 
of the Roman governor. If he were contemptuous 
of the traders and tax-collectors, these might find 
endless difficulties in exacting their dues ; if he were 
subservient, they were able to reap a rich harvest 
from the subjects. In every commercial transaction 
with a provincial the Roman Knight considered 
himself a privileged person, who might stand on the 
strictest letter of his bond, if it suited his purpose, 
or again, if he found it convenient, might play fast 
and loose with the law. Atticus once asked Cicero's 
advice on behalf of a provincial who was unable to 
pay his way. "Good heavens/' writes Cicero in 
reply, " has the man lost his wits? Does this 
Greek think that he is privileged to commit acts of 
fraudulent bankruptcy, just as if he were a Roman 
Knight?"* 

" Publicans," or farmers of the taxes, have always 
laboured under an evil reputation. It is related that 
to pass a wet day at a French country-house it was 
once agreed that each of the company should tell a 
story of robbers. Voltaire was of the party, and when 
it came to his turn he said, " Ladies and gentlemen, 
there was once a Farmer-General." " Well/' said his 
hearers, " and what next? " " What next? What 
more do you want ? We were to tell of robbers/' 
The Roman tax-farmers had at least an equal claim 
to the title. Cicero is a very friendly witness when 
the Roman Knights are concerned, and we may be 
sure that he is within the truth when he tells us that 



* Ad. Att.,iv. B 7, i. 



The Equestrian Order. 33 

a conscientious governor was often sorely perplexed 
by their demands. When his brother was governor 
of Asia, Cicero wrote to him : " If we set ourselves 
in opposition to the publicans we alienate both from 
ourselves and from the State an order, to which we 
are under obligations, and which by our efforts has 
been attached to the constitution. If on the other 
hand we give way to them in everything, we shall 
be parties to the utter ruin of those over whose 
safety and even whose interests it is our bounden 
duty to keep guard. This is (if we are to look the 
business in the face) the one great difficulty in your 
administration. " * 

We now see why the control of the jury-courts 
was a matter of prime importance for the equestrian 
order. In the province they were at the mercy of 
the governor ; they required that he should be at 
their mercy when he came to stand his trial at 
home. There was the closest understanding be- 
tween the Roman Knights in the provinces and 
their fellows on the bench in the Forum. " In 
former days," says Cicero,f " when the equestrian 
order sat on the juries, evil and extortionate magis- 
trates in the provinces were always the humble 
servants of the tax-farmers ; they were civil to the 
agents of the companies ; whenever they saw a 
Roman Knight in their province, they followed him 
up with favours and compliments. These efforts did 
not after all do much to help those who had been 
guilty of malpractices ; but on the other hand 

*AdQ. F. 9 i.,i, 32. 
f In Verr., iii., 41, 94. 
3 



34 Roman Parties. 

many a one found it fatal to him to have acted in 
any way against the wishes and interests of the 
order. There was observed among them a strict 
understanding that any one who had thought him- 
self at liberty to treat with indignity a single Roman 
Knight should be treated as a malefactor by the 
whole order." These equestrian juries were natu- 
rally disliked and feared by the Nobles. It was 
against them that the famous appeal of the great 
orator Lucius Crassus was urged. " Snatch us 
away from this torture ; tear us out of the jaws of 
those whose cruelty cannot be satiated 
with our blood ; suffer us not to be in 
bondage to any, saving to yourselves as a nation, to 
bear whose yoke is within our endurance and within 
our duty." * 

To secure this control over the official class was 
the first object of equestrian policy ; the second was 
as purely selfish and far more perverse. The Roman 
Knights claimed for themselves an immunity from 
all State-prosecutions. The senators, such was their 
contention, are the governing class, and against 
them alone should such prosecutions be directed. 
Cicero puts their pretension as plausibly as he can 
when pleading at the bar for an equestrian client.f 
" There is a charm in the most exalted rank in the 
State, in the curule chair, the fasces, the commands, 
governments, priesthoods, triumphs, and, last of all, 
in the effigy which hands down your memory to 
posterity. Along with these come some anxieties, 

* De Orat. y i., 52, 225. 
\Pro Rab. Post., 7, 16. 



The Equestrian Order. 35 

and a greater responsibility to laws and tribunals. 
We have never thought lightly of your prerogatives 
(so the Roman Knights argue), but we have chosen 
instead this life of quiet and leisure ; as there is no 
glory to win in it, so let there be no trouble to 
molest it." This limitation was introduced not only 
in the case of the court which dealt with extortion 
in the provinces, but also into the trial of charges 
for judicial corruption. A senator, who gave false 
witness or conspired to bribe a jury or himself took 
money for the condemnation of an innocent man, 
might be put on his trial for the offence ; any other 
citizen was irresponsible. This monstrous immunity 
was not only publicly defended by Cicero,"* the 
favourite champion of the equestrian order, but was 
acquiesced in even by its greatest enemy, Sulla, who 
" when he reconstituted the court for the trial of 
these offences, forasmuch as he had found the 
Commons of Rome free from such responsibility 
did not venture to entangle them in fresh liabilities."! 
Any one who presumed to interfere with these 
cherished exemptions and prerogatives incurred the 
deadly enmity of the Roman Knights. Livius 
Drusus, the patriotic tribune of 91 B.C., had com- 
mitted this unpardonable offence, and, in order to 
thwart him, the Knights turned against the Italian 
allies, whose cause Drusus defended, and thus in- 
volved Rome in the disaster of the Social War.J On 



* See below, p. 185 
\Pro Clu., 55, 151. 

% See above, p. 12. We shall see later on how the equestrian 
order turned against Cato for the same reason. 



36 Roman Parties. 

this occasion, as on many others, those who might 
have controlled both the extreme parties and en- 
forced moderation on both, preferred to sell their 
support to whichever of the combatants best served 
their private interests and class privileges. 

When the contest with the allies developed in the 
years 88 and 87 into the first Civil War, the eques- 
trian order patched up its differences with the 
Italians ; but the alarm which Drusus had spread in 
its ranks was still the governing principle of its 
policy. In fear and hatred of the Nobility the 
Knights espoused the democratic cause. They saw 
with satisfaction their haughty rivals fall beneath 
the daggers of Marius, and pressed forward to buy 
up the confiscated properties. A terrible day of 
reckoning was in store for them. The full brunt of 
Sulla's savage retaliation fell on the equestrian order, 
twenty-six hundred of whose members found their 
names in the Proscription Lists.* Sulla reduced the 
survivors to political insignificance by expelling them 
from the jury-courts, and at the same time he de- 
prived them of dignity and precedence by withdraw- 
ing their valued privilege of special seats in the 
theatre. 

The equestrian order was naturally the enemy of 
the constitution established by Sulla; and, decimated 
though it had been by the Proscriptions, its influence 
was still considerable. The enfranchisement of the 
Italians had filled its ranks with worthy 
recruits. In each new municipal town 
and district were to be found substantial and honour- 



*Appian, Bell, Civ^ i., IC3. 




SLING MISSILES FOUND AT ASCULUM. 

SOME OF THESE DATE FROM THE SOCIAL WAR. 

(Duruy.) 



Crassus and Cicero. 37 

able families, whose members were now Romans, but 
Romans without ancestral nobility ; not belonging 
by birth to the official caste, these naturally found 
their place in the second order of the State. 

The Roman Knights, not being personally engaged 
in politics, sought their spokesmen and representa- 
tives among those members of the senatorial order 
who were most in sympathy with their feelings and 
interests. At this time their most prominent cham- 
pion was Marcus Licinius Crassus, a 

74 B.C. 

man of high nobility and now in the 
prime of life. He had fought on the side of Sulla 
in the Civil War, but he had no loyalty to his caste ; 
as the richest man in Rome and the foremost in all 
lucrative speculations, he was the natural representa- 
tive of the capitalists and bankers. Cicero himself 
was fast rising into the position of a second leader 
of the party. He had fully resolved to win his way 
by his own talents and energy to the highest grade 
in the State. For the last three generations only 
one " new man " had succeeded in attaining the con- 
sulship, and this one was his fellow-townsman, Caius 
Marius. In aspiring to reach the same goal Cicero 
must necessarily offend all the proprieties of good 
society, and must be sure that the ruling families 
would exert themselves to exclude him. He de- 
scribes the struggle as he looks back on it in the in- 
augural speech of his consulship.* " I am the first 
i new man ' whom you have raised to the consulship 
after an interval which reaches back almost beyond 
our recollection and the present generation ; I have 

* Contra Rullum^ ii., I, 3. 



38 Roman Parties. \$\ b.c- 

shown you the way into that stronghold which the 
Nobility has held with its garrison and fortified with 
every device ; you have breached the defences of 
that stronghold, and have willed that they should lie 
open to merit in the future." 

The professional rivalry between Cicero and Hor- 
tensius at the bar was sharpened by the circumstance 
that the one represented the " new men " and the 
other the ruling Nobility. The one naturally led 
the assault and the other defended the barriers of 
political and social exclusiveness which Cicero had 
resolved to pass. We may catch a glimpse of the 
situation in a passage % where the younger advocate 
challenges the behaviour of the high society of 
Rome, tolerant to the mis-doings of those within the 
charmed circle, cold and rigid towards all outsiders — 
" Is it not intolerable, Hortensius, to see that your 
friendship and that of the rest of the great and noble 
allows an easier approach to the wickedness and 
effrontery of Verres, than to the virtue and incor- 
ruptibility of any one of us. You detest the industry 
of ' new men/ you look down on their frugal life, you 
think scorn of their purity, and for their genius and 
their manliness you wish it stifled and crushed out. 
Verres is your favourite/' 

The survivors of the Marian party were of course 

bitterly opposed to the constitution set up by the 

conqueror ; but they had exhausted themselves in an 

abortive attempt at revolution under 

the conduct of Lepidus immediately 

after Sulla's death. They gathered around Crassus, 

* In Verr. % iii., 4, 7. 



71 B.C.] Cczsar. 39 

so far as he showed himself in opposition ; but much 
their ablest man and the one already marked out for 
their future chief was the young Caius Julius Caesar. 
Wild and profligate and immersed in debt though 
he was, his native genius, his manly beauty and the 
charm of his manners and conversation already won 
the hearts of men and women and made him the 
most popular man in Rome. Though a patrician of 
the very bluest blood, claiming descent from ^Eneas 
and the kings of Alba, he was closely connected by 
family ties with the democratic party. Julia, Caesar's 
aunt, was married to Marius, and he himself had 
taken to wife Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna. 
Caesar, like Cicero, and under circumstances of 
greater danger, first showed his mettle by daring to 
oppose the will of Sulla ; the threats of the Dictator 
failed to terrify the young man into divorcing Cor- 
nelia, and he was obliged to fly for his life. His 
powerful friends and relations afterwards extorted a 
reluctant pardon from Sulla, who warned them that 
"in that young dandy there lay hidden many 
Mariuses. ,> 

Young as he was, being four* years junior to 
Cicero, Caesar from the first judged and acted for 
himself. He saw that the movement of Lepidus in 
78 B.C. was premature and destined to fail, and he 
refused to throw in his lot with it. He urged that 
the various provisions of the complicated constitu- 
tion of Sulla should be assailed one by one, and that 
the rehabilitation of the tribunate was the first point 

* I adopt Mommsen's conclusion that Caesar was really born in the 
year 102. Most authorities make him two years younger. 



4-0 Roman Parties. [81 B.C.- 

to aim at. The personal disqualifications which 
Sulla had attached to all who had ever held this 
office were removed by a law of the orator Cotta in 
his consulship 75 B.C. ; and another ordinance of the 
Dictator was repealed by the renewal of the dis- 
tributions of corn to the people. 

In estimating the forces with which the govern- 
ment had to reckon, we must not forget the newly 
found power of a professional soldiery. During the 
three generations which elapsed between the first 
consulship of Marius and the battle of Actium the 
Roman armies were organised on a principle inter- 
mediate between the militia system of the earlier 
Republic and the permanent standing armies of the 
Empire. The soldier, during this period of transi- 
tion, is a volunteer and not a conscript. He is no 
longer a citizen serving his time in the ranks, but a 
professional. On the other hand he is under no 
permanent contract with the State, and hardly feels 
himself to be its servant. He has enlisted under a 
particular general for a particular war, which now 
often extends over many campaigns, and to his 
general alone he looks for promotion and for reward.* 
There now comes into prominence the personal 
" sacramentum " or oath of military obedience which 
the soldier swears to his own commander. The 
" sacramentum " and not loyalty to the State is his 
point of honour, and the circumstances under which 
this allegiance may be lent or recalled or trans- 



* The mischief of the want of a regular system of retirement and 
pension is set forth by Mr. Fowler in his Life of Ccesar in this series 
(p. 107). 



71 B.C.] Pompey. 41 

ferred are points to be argued with the lawyer-like 
precision which the Romans carried into all their 
transactions whether with men or gods. 

The power of this mercenary soldiery had been 
abundantly shown by Sulla, who revealed the fatal 
secret that with a victorious proconsul and a veteran 
army lay the last word in political contests. When 
Sulla had completed his work of restoration, it was 
from the same quarter that danger to his oligarchical 
constitution was most to be apprehended. Yet 
Sulla did nothing or little to guard against the peril. 
The best safeguard would have been a strong central 
executive in Rome, wielding the whole military force 
of the empire and strictly responsible to the Senate. 
But this seemed too hazardous an experiment. 
Sulla weakened the magistrates at the seat of govern- 
ment, lest they should be too strong for the Senate, 
and shut his eyes to the fact that he thus renounced 
control over the far more dangerous magistrates on 
the frontiers. 

As yet the mercenary soldiery was only half con- 
scious of its powers ; nevertheless the fact that a 
new military force had grown up was one of the 
main elements in the political situation. The blind 
hopes and wishes of the soldiers needed a represent- 
ative, and this representative was found in the person 
of the young commander Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus. 
Born in the same year as Cicero, and son of the 
consul under whom Cicero had served in the Social 
War (p. n), Pompey was twenty-three years of age 
when Sulla returned from the East in 83 B.C. By 
his own influence and reputation with the soldiers, 



42 Roman Parties. [81 B.c- 

Pompey raised three legions in Picenum, out- 
manoeuvred the superior forces opposed to him, and 
affected a junction with Sulla's troops in Southern 
Italy. The Dictator treated the young soldier with 
marked distinction ; he employed him in indepen- 
dent commands, he yielded in spite of all constitu- 
tional objections to his demand for a triumph, and 
saluted him with the title of " the Great," which 
Pompey bore henceforth as a surname. After Sulla's 
death Pompey in turn lent his sword to defend the 
constitution against the attacks of Lepidus. Never- 
theless the union between the general and the gov- 
ernment was never hearty or sincere ; and this was 
mainly because the oligarchs would not take the 
trouble to bind Pompey to their cause. It was 
intolerable to them that any man should claim the 
exceptional position which Pompey had occupied 
from the outset, and which he had no intention of 
relinquishing. It was contrary to all rules that a 
young man, not yet of senatorial age, who had filled 
none even of the minor magistracies of the State, 
should be invested with one extraordinary command 
after another, that he should be general-in-chief of 
armies, and triumph like a legitimate consul. Pom- 
pey was not really a dangerous man : he had no 
designs against the State, and no love of the hazards 
and dislocations of revolution ; he asked for nothing 
better than to be the armed protector of a Republi- 
can government ; but he considered himself a privi- 
leged person, for whom every-day rules were not 
made, and he was fully resolved not to reduce 
himself to the rank of an ordinary noble as the 



71 B.C.] The Government. 43 

principles of oligarchy required. The difference was 
one which might have been easily settle'd with a 
little tact on both sides ; but this was wanting, and 
the influence of Pompey must be considered as 
potentially at least on the side of the opposition. 

These then were the forces which threatened the 
established order of things when Cicero became a 
senator. We have yet to consider what was the 
character of the government itself, and who were its 
chief supporters. An oligarchy, governing by a per- 
manent and practically hereditary chamber, such as 
was the Roman Senate, is exposed to many risks 
and dangers. It is apt to injure itself by over- 
exclusiveness, cutting off the supply of able recruits 
from below, and thus impairing the efficiency in 
administration which is the chief title of such a 
government to rule. The great prizes which are to 
be distributed among its members give occasion to 
cliques and cabals within the privileged ranks. Self- 
conceit shuts the eyes of the Nobles to dangers, and 
leads them to disregard public opinion outside their 
own ranks as the mere babble of the multitude ; lack 
of sympathy and intelligence makes them slow to 
read the necessities of the time, and they are apt to 
be affected by a certain lordly apathy which prevents 
their seriously exerting themselves to frame a policy 
or to adapt themselves to changing social conditions. 
These are all natural and inherent defects which 
every oligarchy has to dread. These dangers may 
be aggravated by habits of luxury and by the ab- 
sence of political responsibility. Never, perhaps, 
was an oligarchy set in the midst of such dangers 



44 Roman Parties. [81 B.C.* 

and temptations as those with which Sulla had 
surrounded the ruling families of Rome. He had 
carefully stopped all the channels through which 
public opinion could legitimately find utterance, and 
had freed the Nobles from all responsibility except to 
their own order. The fear of equestrian juries and of 
tribunician license had at least brought it home to 
the governing class that they were not the whole 
State. Now there was nothing to disturb their 
repose. Sulla's constitution staked all on the hope 
that within this ring of families there should be a 
constant succession of vigorous administrators and 
able officers capable of guiding the State in peace 
and war. But the system was little calculated to 
produce the men required to work it. The Roman 
Noble was encouraged to spend his youth in luxury 
and extravagance. If he were easy-going and care- 
less, he sank into the class of elegant triflers of whom 
Cicero says — " they are so stupid that they seem to 
think that though the Commonwealth may go to 
ruin, their fish-ponds will be safe." If he had 
ambition, then the wilder his expenditure on shows 
and largesses, the more surely he might look forward 
to his election as praetor and as consul. Here was 
the opportunity to restore his shattered fortune. 
The world was divided into provinces, each of which 
was destined to be prey of one member after another 
of the official caste at Rome. The short period of 
eleven years between the dictatorship of Sulla and 
the first consulship of Pompey has for its typical 
administrators the three men whose names Juvenal 
selects out of all past history when he wishes to 



71 B.C.] Senatorial Leaders. 45 

gibbet the most shameless and notorious plunderers 
of the provinces — Dolabella, Antonius, and Verres.* 
We must turn again to Cicero for a summing up of 
the condition of the subjects of Rome under this 
dreadful yoke. " All the provinces are mourning, 
all the free states are complaining, every principality 
utters its protest against our greed and our insolence ; 
within the bounds set by the Ocean there is no spot 
so distant or so retired that the lewdness and evil 
dealing of our nation have not found the way 
thither. The tribes of the earth overpower the 
Roman People beyond its endurance, not with force, 
not with arms, not with war, but with their sorrow, 
their tears, their lamentation/' f 

One more cause of demoralisation must not be 
forgotten. The Roman oligarchy owed its present 
position to the sword of Sulla, and had founded its 
domination on the slaughter and robbery of all its 
principal opponents. Such a past is enough to sap 
the vigour of any body of politicians ; it leads them 
to look to mere brute force to clear a way for them 
out of their perplexities ; it seems to absolve them 
from the necessity for wisdom and prescience and 
statesman-like capacity, and teaches them to evade 
the task of finding a solution for political problems. 

Rome still possessed in her ruling order some men 
of respectable ability, who in easy and quiet times 
might perhaps have conducted the business of the 
State creditably, though they were unequal to deal 
with the tremendous issues of their own day. Such 

* Juvenal, Sat., viii., 105. 
fin Verr., iii., 89, 207. 



46 Roman Parties. 



was Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, whom we have 
already seen as a leader of the bar ; Servilius Isauri- 
cus who did good service in Cilicia in the years 78™ 
j6 ; Metellus Pius who at the head of an army in 
Spain displayed a moderate soldier-like capacity, 
though he was overshadowed by his younger and 
more vigorous colleague Pompey ; Servius Sulpicius 
Rufus, a young man of amiable character and blame- 
less life, who was already becoming famous as the 
most learned lawyer in Rome ; Quintus Lutatius 
Catulus, a distinguished and respected nobleman 
already past middle age, and lastly one man of more 
brilliant parts, Lucius Licinius Lucullus. Lucullus 
after his consulship in 74 B.C. was entrusted with the 
command against Mithridates of Pontus, who had 
again resolved to try the fortune of war with the 
Roman People, and who was now supported by the 
powerful king of Armenia. In this war Lucullus 
showed a boldness and skill which we may almost 
call military genius, but this was marred by a care- 
lessness of disposition and an incapacity for dealing 
with men, which effectually prevented his becoming 
a great statesman. 

A more interesting personality than all these was 
just rising into notice. Marcus Porcius Cato, a 
descendant of the famous censor, was the youngest 
of the four great men whose fortunes were involved 
in the fall of the Roman Republic ; he was born in 
the year 96 B.C.,* ten years after Cicero and Pompey, 



* The date commonly given is 95, but we know that he was quaestor 
when Catulus was censor (Plutarch, Cato Minor, 16, 4), L e., in 65 B.C., 
and he must therefore have passed thirty at the beginning of that year. 



Cato. 47 

and six years after Caesar. Plutarch tells us a story 
of his childhood, which seems like a foreshadowing 
of his whole life. He was nephew of the great 
Livius Drusus, and happened to be with other 
children at his uncle's house, when the question of 
the enfranchisement of the allies was beginning to 
be mooted. Pompaedius Silo, an emi- 
nent Italian who was present, laugh- 
ingly canvassed the children for their vote and 
interest in his cause ; and all readily consented except 
Cato. He had somehow got it into his obstinate 
little head that to yield to the demands of her allies 
would be unworthy of Rome. When coaxing failed, 
Pompaedius held him out of the window and threat- 
ened to drop him ; but no, " he would not, and he 
would not." If the fate of Italy had rested with 
this urchin of five years old, he would have died 
sooner than allow her to be saved from the Social War. 
The same unbending temper, inaccessible to 
reason, to fear, or to favour, characterised Cato 
throughout. He always did that which his con- 
science told him was right, irrespective of conse- 
quences, and his very narrowness made him a power. 
He was the only Roman whom Caesar condescended 
to fear and to hate. He might unconsciously do 
Caesar's work for him ; in fact, his shortsightedness 
caused him repeatedly to throw the game into 
Caesar's hands ; but he could neither be bought, nor 
conciliated, nor coerced ; and such a man was highly 
provoking to Caesar. In aims, in character, and in 
conduct, alike in their qualities and in their defects, 
the two men were hopelessly antagonistic. Cato's 



48 Cato. 

whole life was a tacit condemnation of Caesar, and 
his voluntary martyrdom was a keenly felt reproba- 
tion of the Dictator and all his works. Caesar 
pursued him even in his grave with a lampoon. 

Cato's obstinacy, his narrowness, and his imprac- 
ticability will find ample illustration in the following 
pages, and I need not dwell on them here. But we 
must not forget the other side of the picture. In an 
age of the most unbridled license of speech, an age 
which would have been inclined to leave, " not even 
Lancelot brave or Galahad pure," the character of 
Cato stood alike above censure and above eulogy.* 
The common sense of the Romans recognised in him 
a man over whose actions corrupt or self-seeking 
motives had no power, and whose sole thought was 
of duty. He became to them a sort of embodiment 
of the public conscience ; " to earn the approval of 
Cato," was a synonym for pure and righteous action. 
Rome was the better for having a living standard of 
integrity set before her eyes. An advocate, though 
he might quake at the thought of having him for a 
juror, hesitated to challenge Cato, for such a chal- 
lenge seemed an acknowledgment that his case was 
a bad one. In the year 54 B.C. certain candidates for 
the tribuneship, who wished for once to have a pure 
election, agreed each of them to deposit a large sum 
with Cato, which the depositor was to forfeit if his 
proceedings seemed to Cato deserving of blame; 
" if," exclaims Cicero,f " there is really no bribery this 



* Cujus gloriae neque profuit quisquam laudando, nee vituperando 
quisquam nocuit, quum utrumque summis prsediti fecerint ingeniis. 
— Livy, Fragm., 44 (Madvig). 

\AdAtt. % iv., 15, 8. 



Lucullus and Sertorius. 49 

time (and people seem to think that this will be so), 
Cato singlehanded will have proved of more avail 
than all the laws and all the courts/' He was like- 
wise through life the champion of the helpless pro- 
vincials,* and in the last terrible struggle he lifted up 
his voice, though in vain, against the harshness and 
cruelty of his associates. Cato's want of tact and 
judgment often made him a sore trial and vexation 
to his friends ; but these weaknesses were on the 
surface ; at heart the man was sound, honest, and 
fearless. His faults have deserved to be forgotten 
by posterity, and his virtues have been claimed as a 
possession of the world for all time. It has proved 
true for him, that "The path of duty was the way to 
glory." 

The fortunes of Rome were chequered during the 
years following the Restoration which was the work 
of Sulla. Lucullus, as we have seen, won some 
brilliant victories in the East. Spain was disturbed 
by a remnant of the Marians under Sertorius. By 
the aid of native allies Sertorius resisted for long 
years with varying success the efforts of Metellus 
and Pompey. His assassination by one of his Roman 
comrades caused the collapse of the Spanish insur- 
rection, and the country was effectually subdued by 
Pompey. Meanwhile the government had on its 
hands two contests of a very dangerous and irritat- 
ing nature. It was too timid or too supine to or- 
ganise a powerful and centralised fleet, or to supply 
Italy with a proper garrison. The result of the first 



* A quo uno omnium sociorum querellae audiuntur. — Ad Fam. , 
xv., 4, 15. Plutarch, Cato Minor, 53, 4. 



50 Roman Parties. [74 b.c- 

error was that pirates swarmed over the Mediterra- 
nean. A half-hearted attempt was made to create 
a High Admiral in the person of Antonius, but he 
proved both corrupt and incapable ; he plundered 
the subjects of Rome remorselessly, and was de- 
feated by the pirates. After this, the Senate desisted 
from its efforts. Still nearer home, a serious danger 
befell the Romans in the slave insurrection headed 
by Spartacus. The great plantations worked by 
slave-labour, which were so convenient and profit- 
able to the wealthy Nobles, filled Italy with men 
whose extreme misery made them ready for any 
desperate attempt ; and bold bandit chiefs were 
reared for them in the gladiatorial training-schools, 
which for the purposes of the game were obliged to 
cherish in their victims habits of endurance, con- 
tempt of pain and death, and a sense of honour to 
be kept bright in spite of social degradation. Cicero 
has described how " gladiators, barbarians or crim- 
inals though they be, stand to the stroke ; how those 
who have perfected themselves in their calling will 
rather take the wound than avoid it by foul play ; 
how manifest it is that their first object is to do 
their duty to their master and to the public. Even 
when sinking under his wounds the man sends a 
message to his master to know whether he has any 
further orders ; if his master thinks he has done 
enough,* he should be glad to be allowed to lie down 
and die." Spartacus, a gladiator of this type, es- 
caped from his barrack and soon collected round 
him an army recruited from among the slaves of 

* Reading " si " with Tischer. Tusc. Disp %% ii., 17, 41. 



71 B.C.] The Slave War. 51 

Southern Italy. After defeating over and over again 
the Roman magistrates and their hasty levies, the 
insurgents were at length crushed by Crassus, and 
their leader fell in battle. This was in the year 71 
B.C. ; at the same moment Pompey returned with 
his army from Spain, and extirpated the remnants 
of the rebel force. 




OOIN STRUCK BY ITALIANS IN SOCIAL WAR, 

SABELLIAN BULL GORiNG THE ROMAN WOLF. 

(Duruy.) 





Ml, 







CHAPTER III. 

CICERO AS AN ADVOCATE. ATTICUS. 

FAMILY. 



CICERO'S 



71-67 B.C. 

OMPEY and Crassus were not 
good friends, but a common 
interest now drew them to- 
gether. Pompey claimed a 
triumph for his victories in 
Spain. The claim was irregu- 
lar. Pompey had never been 
consul or praetor. He had 
therefore no legitimate " aus- 
pices " to hallow his success, 
and so was not properly qualified for the religious 
ceremonial of the triumph. In former days the great 
Scipio himself had asked in vain for a triumph 
under similar circumstances. But Pompey had 
already a precedent in his own case,* and it was 
short-sighted pedantry on the part of the Senate to 
refuse what even Sulla had been obliged to concede. 
Pompey likewise demanded that the privilege should 

* See above, p. 42. 




Pompey s First Consulship, 53 

be granted him of overstepping all the minor magis- 
tracies and being at once accepted as a candidate for 
the consulship. To the restrictions of age prescribed 
by the law he might well reply, as Napoleon did on 
a like occasion, " a man grows old on the field of 
battle, and that is where I have been/' Here again 
the government, which might easily have won the 
support of Pompey, foolishly haggled over the price. 
The Nobles had soon reason to regret their obstinacy. 
The democrats grasped the opportunity 
and called on Pompey to put himself at 
the head of the opposition. Pompey and Grassus 
availed themselves of the pretext of their intended 
triumph to march their united armies to the gates 
of Rome. The Senate, which had no troops avail- 
able, was forced to an ignominious surrender ; the 
necessary decrees were passed, and Pompey and 
Crassus were elected consuls for the year 70 on the 
understanding that they were to satisfy the two 
great sections of the opposition, the democrats by 
the restoration of their former legal right of initiative 
to the tribunes, and the Knights by placing them 
once more on the judicial bench. 

In this great assault on the constitution of Sulla, 
Cicero naturally went with the equestrian order and 
took the side of Pompey and the opposition. He 
frankly accepted Pompey for his political leader, and 
the bond thus knit between them, though often sub- 
jected to severe strain, was never wholly broken. 
Whether Cicero heartily approved of the restoration 
of the tribunate, or whether he merely acquiesced in 
it as part of the bargain between the factions, is un- 



54 Cicero as an Advocate. [70 B.C. 

certain. His references to the change at the time, 
are slight,* but they seem to imply satisfaction. 
Even in later years, when he had himself suffered 
from the unbridled power of a tribune, he contended, 
though somewhat faintly, that Pompey was justified 
in his policy.f He urges that, though the power of 
the tribune is doubtless excessive, yet " the violence 
of the people is a force yet more savage by far and 
more uncontrollable, and this is sometimes under 
greater restraint, if it has a leader, than if it has 
none ; for the leader considers that he advances at 
his own peril, whereas the popular impulse takes no 
account of danger." " Pompey," he continues, " was 
bound to have regard not only to what was most de- 
sirable, but to what was necessary. It was the part 
of a wise citizen not to leave to some pestilent dema- 
gogue the credit of a measure, which was not so very 
dangerous in itself, and which was too popular to be 
resisted." 

But if Cicero were dubious or neutral in respect of 
this portion of the programme of the opposition, it 
was far otherwise when he dealt with the reform of 
the jury-courts. Here he was heart and soul with 
the order from whose ranks he had sprung. He 
felt that it was a mere mockery of responsibility to 
bring corrupt governors before a bench of their 
peers, who were too often their accomplices. It 
was easier indeed to point out the faults of the 
present system than to provide a remedy. Pompey's 

* In Verr. y v., 63, 163, and 68, 175. 

fin the treatise De Legibus (iii., io, 23), written about eighteen 
years later. 



70 B.C.] Speech against Verves. 55 

measure had the merit of settling once for all this 
much disputed question by a compromise which 
divided the juries between the orders in the pro- 
portion of one of the senatorial to two of the non- 
official class. But though useful in quieting the 
rivalry between the orders, it is doubtful whether 
the new law did much to make the courts more 
pure or more impartial. 

Cicero rendered an important service to the party 
of reform by breaking through his usual practice of 
accepting briefs only for the defence, and by bring- 
ing to trial the most flagitious of all the offenders, 
Caius Verres, the notorious praetor of Sicily. 

I will not attempt even a summary of the appalling 
misdeeds of Verres. Every calamity which the lust, 
the cruelty, and the rapacity of a tyrant could inflict 
on his slaves, was endured for three years by the mis- 
erable Sicilians. Cicero's description of the governor- 
ship of Verres serves as a sort of high-water mark 
to show to what a pitch of iniquity men set above 
the fear of responsibility may attain, when granted 
absolute power over a subject population. I prefer 
to dwell on a matter which could be treated by the 
orator with lighter touches. 

The name of Verres is perhaps best known and 
remembered as that of the most inveterate pillager 
of all the great army of unscrupulous art-collectors. 
Nothing which was at once beautiful and portable 
escaped his fingers. From the plate at the tables 
where he was invited to dinner, up to the most an- 
cient image of Ceres in her native seat of Henna, 
which was believed to be sanctified by the very 



56 Cicero as an Advocate. [70 B.c, 

presence of the goddess herself, all was swept into 
his net. Sometimes he added insult to injury by 
compelling his victims to accept a trumpery sum, as 
purchase money for their ancestral heirlooms or for 
the tutelary gods of their cities. He appropriated 
even the, statues which the Carthaginian conquerors 
in former days had carried from Sicily and which 
Scipio had restored, as a monument of the magna- 
nimity of Rome, to their first possessors. The bases 
with the name of Scipio alone remained to tell the 
story. The historic pictures on the walls of the 
temple of Pallas at Syracuse were torn from their 
site ; the gates of the same temple, supposed to be the 
finest in the world, were stripped of their embossed 
gold and ivory, and their marvellous Gorgon's head. 
Of the statue of Sappho from the prytaneum of Syra- 
cuse Cicero says,* " this gave you so fair an excuse 
that one is almost obliged to allow it. This master- 
piece of Selanion, so perfect, so graceful, so exquisite, 
how should it be in the possession of any individual 
or of any State, saving only of our most elegant 
and accomplished Verres ? Any one of us, not born 
to such good fortune, has no business to be particular ; 
if he wants to look at anything of the sort, let him 
go to the Temple of Happiness, to the Monument 
of Catulus, to the Portico of Metellus ; or let him 
bestir himself to obtain admission to the suburban 
villa of one of you fine gentlemen ; or let him con- 
tent himself with the sight of the Forum, if Verres 
lends any of his treasures to the aediles to decorate 
it on great occasions. But Verres must have these 

* In Verrem^ iv., 57, 125. 



70 B.C.I Speech against Verves. 57 

things at home ; Verres must have his mansion and 
his country seats crammed with the spoils of temples 
and cities. Will you bear any longer, gentlemen of 
the jury, with the fancies and luxuries of this clown, 
who by nature and education seems formed in body 
and mind to be the porter of works of art rather 
than the collector? " In the meantime the occupa- 
tion of the Syracusan guides was gone ; they used 
to take strangers round to show the art treasures of 
the city, now they could only point out the place 
where each had stood, before the praetorship of 
Verres. The end of Verres is characteristic. Con- 
demned and driven into exile, he still clung to some 
of his darling stolen goods ; twenty-seven years 
later he was in possession of some vases which at- 
tracted the attention of Antony, and for their sake 
Verres' throat was cut in the last great Proscrip- 
tion. 

Before leaving this subject I must say a few 
words on Cicero's treatment of art and art-criticism. 
We find in his writings all the appreciation of a 
cultivated gentleman for painting and sculpture; 
and in his earlier letters to Atticus he continually 
commissions his friend to purchase statues and bas- 
reliefs in Greece, and expresses the greatest delight 
in what Atticus sends him. But in this speech, in 
order to point the contrast against Verres, he ap- 
pears as the representative of the sterner and simpler 
of his countrymen, who regard the new-born interest 
of the Romans in art as a sign of degeneracy, the 
lowering of the imperial race to the petty skill and 
effeminate tastes of the Greek or the Asiatic. The 



58 Cicero as an Advocate. [70 B.C. 

sentiment has found expression in the immortal 
verse of Virgil — 

Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera ; 
Credo equidem vivos ducent de marmore vultus : 
Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus 
Describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent ; 
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, 
Hac tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem, 
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. 

In Cicero the affectation of indifference is merely 
playful and is not long sustained ; but while it lasts 
it is very pretty fooling, and affords an excellent 
specimen of the "mendaciuncula, ,, or mystifications, 
with which, as he tells us,* an advocate is permitted 
to season the gravity of his discourse. 

The following description^ which comes at the 
very beginning of this section of the speech, will 
give a sufficient idea of Cicero's manner. — " In the 
house of Heius there was in the place of honour a 
shrine, an inheritance from his ancestors, of great 
antiquity, in which there were four admirable statues 
of the finest style of art and famous of their kind, 
such as might give pleasure not only to this virtuoso 
and connoisseur, but to any one of us — to any * ig- 
noramus ' as he would say. One of these was a 
Cupid in marble by Praxiteles — you see that in 
getting up my case against Verres I have learned 
the names of the artists. . . . On the opposite 
side was a Hercules, excellently moulded in bronze ; 



* De Oral., ii., 59, 241. 
fin Verr. 9 iv., 2, 4, seq. 



70 B.C.] Trial of Verres. 59 

this, unless I am mistaken, was the work of Myron 
— yes, Myron was the name, I am sure. In front of 
these gods were small altars which sufficiently indi- 
cated the sanctity of the shrine, and furthermore two 
bronze statues, of no great size but of exquisite 
beauty, in the form and dress of young girls with the 
hands raised to support some sacred object, which 
they bore on their heads after the manner of Athen- 
ian maidens ; ' Canephorae ' was what they were 
called, but what was the name of the artist ? who 
was it ? — thank you for reminding me ; the artist was 
named Polycletus." It would be absurd of course 
to take all this seriously ; it is merely as playing the 
part of the antique and unsophisticated Roman, in 
which character Cicero is posing for the moment, 
that he must affect to have learned the names of 
Myron and Polycletus and Praxiteles as an incident 
of the getting up of his lawyer's brief. 

Notwithstanding the notoriety of Verres* crimes, 
the Nobles of the Senate seem to have looked on 
him with favour. His provincial command, con- 
ferred originally for one year only, was extended 
for two succeeding years. The great family of the 
Metelli supported him both at home and in Sicily, 
where all the machinery of the government was set 
in motion to detain witnesses and to suppress evi- 
dence. Hortensius put not only his eloquence but 
his powerful influence at his disposal, and Verres 
seems to have fully expected that between influence 
and bribes he would be able to secure an acquittal. 
"Those," he observed, "had reason to be alarmed 
who had plundered only enough for themselves ; he 



6o Cicero as an Advocate. t?0 B.C. 

had taken so much that there was plenty for others 
as well " ; * " he had so ordered the three years of his 
Sicilian praetorship, that he should do exceedingly 
well for himself if he put the proceeds of the first 
year into his own pocket, while he handed over the 
second to his advocate and supporters, and reserved 
the third, that fattest and most lucrative year of all, 
entire for the jury." f 

His chances would have been much improved, if 
he could have put off the delivery of the verdict till 
after the beginning of the new year, when Horten- 
sius would be consul with a Metellus for colleague, 
and another Metellus would be called to preside as 
praetor at the trial. By the help of intervening fes- 
tivals he hoped to be able to spin out the trial over 
this date ; but Cicero outwitted him by making a 
very short opening speech, and leaving his case to 
be proved by the witnesses. The evidence was so 
overwhelming that Verres abandoned his defence 
and retired into exile. 

In the meantime public opinion was running high 
against the corruption of the senatorial juries. If 
we may trust Cicero's representation, it was this 
which gave force to the whole attack against the 
constitution of Sulla. " The Roman people," he 
says, % " though beset with many distresses and many 
anxieties, yet seeks for no reform in the State so 
eagerly as for the restoration of the old firmness and 
the old integrity of the juries. It is because they 

* Actio Prima, 2, 4. 
f Actio Prima, 14, 40. 
% Divinatio i 3, 8. 



^OB.C] Speech against Verres. 61 

cannot trust the courts that they clamour for the 
tribunician power ; it is because the courts are cor- 
rupt that another rank of men is demanded for the 
bench ; it is from the iniquity and the ill-fame of 
the jurors that the censorship, which was once a 
name of dread, is now asked for, is now a popular 
cry and calls forth cheers of approbation." 

And again * — " this point did not escape that wise 
and eminent statesman Quintus Catulus, who when 
asked his opinion in the Senate by our noble and 
gallant consul on the question of the tribunician 
power, which was before the House, began his 
speech with these weighty words : ' that the senators 
have handled the courts corruptly and scandalously, 
and that if they had been content to satisfy public 
opinion by their verdicts, the Roman people would 
not be so anxious for the tribunician power.' Fi- 
nally Cnaeus Pompeius himself, in the first speech 
which he made as consul elect before the gates 
of the city, when he indicated (as most people ex- 
pected) that he would restore the tribunician power, 
elicited a hum and murmur of approval from his 
audience ; but when in the course of the same speech 
he said, * the provinces are pillaged and harried, and 
gross and scandalous verdicts are returned ; I hope 
to find a remedy for this state of things ' ; then the 
Roman people gave voice to its feelings no longer 
by indistinct utterances but by downright shouts of 
applause. " 

Cicero aided this movement by publishing the full 
and detailed exposition of the crimes of Verres, 

* Actio Prima , 15, 44* 



62 Cicero as an Advocate, m B.C.- 

which he would have delivered as a second speech 
if the trial had run its full course. The speech is 
thus a political pamphlet, setting forth the misdoings 
of senatorial governors and the corruption of sena- 
torial juries. The influence on opinion of Cicero's 
published pleadings was such as to make the orator 
a great power in Rome. " His speeches/' writes 
Mr. Tyrrell, " discharged the highest work now done 
by our best newspapers, magazines, and reviews. To 
gain Cicero was what it would be to secure the ad- 
vocacy of the Times \ or rather what it would be 
were there no other paper, review, or magazine but 
the Times, and were the leaders of the Times written 
by Burke and Sheridan. . . . . They put the 
public in possession of the circumstances in each 
case, and taught them to look on these circum- 
stances with the eyes of the speaker and his party ; 
they converted resistance into acceptance, and 
warmed acceptance into enthusiasm ; they provided 
faith with reasons, doubt with arguments, and tri- 
umph with words." 

Cicero was now the foremost among the advocates 
of Rome, for Cotta had died, and Hortensius passed 
through a period of eclipse, from which however he 
seems to have emerged later on. This is Cicero's 
own account of the matter in the Brutus* " After 
his consulship (I suppose because he saw that he 
was beyond comparison the first speaker among the 
consulars and took no count of those who had not 
attained that dignity), Hortensius relaxed the efforts 
which he had exerted from his boyhood up, and 

* Brut. t 93, 320. 




HORTENSIUS. 
{From Bernoulli? s Rom. IkonJ) 



67 B.C.] Defence of Cornelius. 63 

being well off in every way chose to pass his time 
more agreeably, as he thought, or at any rate less 
laboriously. Just as the brilliancy fades from the 
colouring of an old picture, so the first, the second, 
and the third year each robbed him of something 
not noticeable by a casual observer, but which an 
educated and discerning critic could detect. As 
time went on, he continued to deteriorate in his 
delivery, especially in readiness and sustained flow 
of utterance, until he became every day more unlike 
his old self ... By the time that I was made 
consul, six years after his own consulship, Horten- 
sius had almost effaced himself. Then he began 
again to take pains ; for now that he and I were 
equals in rank, he wished us to be equals in every- 
thing. Thus for the twelve years following my con- 
sulship we two were engaged in the most important 
cases with unbroken friendliness. I always con- 
sidered him superior to myself ; he put me first/' 

The most notable case in which Cicero was en- 
gaged during the period immediately before his 
consulship was his defence of Caius Cornelius, who 
as tribune in the year 6j B.C. had attempted to check 
the practice, by which the Senate granted dispensa- 
tions from general laws under peculiar circumstances. 
The permission to Pompey to stand for the consul- 
ship in 70 B.C. is one instance of the kind, and 
Caesar's request for a triumph in 60 B.C. is another. 
In pressing his bill through its earlier stages Cor- 
nelius had certainly been guilty of irregularities; 
still he had not persevered in illegal courses, but 
had withdrawn his measure and substituted another, 



64 Cicero as an Advocate. [71 B.C.- 

which was unanimously accepted, recognising the 
prerogative of the Senate but guarding against its 
abuse. Nevertheless when he went out of office he 
was put on his trial for riot and Cicero appeared as 
his counsel. His speech, now unhappily lost, is 
adduced by Quintilian * as the great example of the 
power of fervid eloquence. " In defending Cornelius 
Cicero wields arms which are not only potent but 
flash resplendent. If he had contented himself with 
instructing the jury on the merits of the case, and 
speaking sensibly and clearly and in good Latin, he 
would never have brought the Roman people, as he 
did, to utter their enthusiasm not by cheers alone 
but by clapping of the hands. It was because he 
was lofty and majestic and splendid and overpower- 
ing that he wrung that applause from them . . . 
I fancy that those who heard him were transported, 
and cheered because they must, not because they 
chose ; like men beside themselves who had lost 
consciousness of where they stood, they burst forth 
into those expressions of delight." 

Cicero's reputation as an advocate was now so 
great that, " his doors," as Plutarch tells, "were 
thronged with clients, no less than those of Crassus 
and Pompey who were then the most famous per- 
sons in Rome, the one for his wealth the other for 
his military renown." He adds that " Pompey 
courted Cicero, and the support of Cicero contrib- 
uted much to Pompey's power and reputation." 

This influence was at first exercised only indirectly, 
for Cicero never addressed the people, nor, so far as 

* Quintilian, Inst, Orat., viii., 3,3. 



67 B.C.] The Advocate s Duly. 65 

we know, the Senate, until after he was elected 
praetor in 66 B.C. At this period of his life Cicero is 
above all things a pleader at the bar, and it will be 
interesting to see what are his own notions of the 
duty of an advocate. They are just those which 
the practical necessities of pleading have prescribed 
to modern lawyers. The advocate speaks as the 
representative of his client ; it is not his business to 
weigh the case as a judge, but to put as strongly as 
possible those points which are in favour of his 
client, and to extenuate those which make against 
him. It once fell to Cicero's lot to speak in defence 
of a man named Aulus Cluentius who lay under 
strong suspicion of having bribed a jury to obtain 
the condemnation of his enemy. The case was a 
notorious one, and had been referred to as such by 
Cicero, when three years previously in his speech 
against Verres he was inveighing against the corrup- 
tion of the courts. The counsel opposed to Cluen- 
tius took advantage of this circumstance to claim 
the authority of Cicero's sentence against his own 
client. Cicero's argument in reply is very much 
what an English barrister would plead on a similar 
occasion. " There remains one most weighty judg- 
ment, which to my shame I was nearly forgetting to 
notice, for it is that of no less a person than myself. 
Attius read out of some speech or other, which he 
said was mine, an appeal to a jury to give a righteous 
verdict, in which I referred to some verdicts of evil 
fame, and amongst others to that of the court over 
which Junius presided ; just as if I had not said my- 
self in opening this speech that the verdict in ques- 



66 Cicero as an Advocate. 

tion lay under grave imputations, or as if when I was 
discoursing of the corruption of the courts I could 
at that time have passed over this case which was 
then in every one's mouth. If I said anything of the 
kind, I was not speaking from ascertained inquiry 
nor was I giving evidence in the witness-box, and 
my remarks were such as the occasion demanded 
and not to be taken for my final sentence and judg- 
ment. . . . It is a great mistake to suppose that 
in our speeches, which are delivered at the bar, you 
have our deliberate judgments on record. All such 
speeches are the utterances not so much of the 
counsel as of his brief and of the case. For, if the 
case of a litigant could speak for itself, no one would 
employ a pleader. Now we are employed to utter, 
not that which we are to lay down on our own re- 
sponsibility, but that which is prompted by the 
requirements of the case in which we are engaged." * 
Side by side with this passage we may set another 
from the Brutus f in which Cicero's ideal of the 
qualities of the forensic orator is more fully set 
forth. " To have studied more subtilely than other 
men that literature wherein the fountain-head of 
perfect eloquence is to be found ; to have embraced 
philosophy the mother of all good deeds and good 
words; to have learned the Civil Law, a matter 
most necessary for private suits and for the technical 
skill of a pleader; to hold in your memory the st<iry 
of Rome, whence you can summon, when need is, 
most authentic witnesses from the tomb ; to be able 

* Pro C/u. f 50. 
\Brui., 93, 322. 



Atticus. 67 

shortly and neatly to turn the laugh against your 
antagonist, and so give some repose to the minds of 
the jurors and lead them away a little from stern- 
ness to a smile ; to be able to take a wider sweep 
and transfer the argument from the particular man 
and the particular time to the consideration of the 
universal principle involved ; to know how to give 
pleasure by a slight digression ; to be able to stir 
the soul of the juryman to anger or to move him to 
tears, to carry him with you, this is the special pre- 
rogative of the orator, in whatever direction the 
case demands/' 

With the year 68 B.C. begins the great series of 
Cicero's letters ; but they are at first brief and 
scanty ; it is not until after his consulship that they 
become our main guide and authority for the his- 
tory. This will be a good opportunity to speak of 
Cicero's chief friend and correspondent, Titus Pom- 
ponius Atticus. 

The family of Atticus had held its place for 
generations in the equestrian order, but unlike that 
of Cicero it belonged from the first to the purely 
Roman stock.* He was closely connected with the 
tribune Sulpicius Rufus, who became the victim of 
Sulla in his first attack on Rome in the year 88. 
The young Pomponius is said to have been in some 
danger on this occasion, but this did not deter him 
from aiding the flight and supplying the needs of 
the younger Marius, who was proscribed at the same 
time by Sulla. Sick of the civic bloodshed, which 

* These and the following details are derived from the Life of 
Atticus by his contemporary and friend Cornelius Nepos, 



68 Atticus. 



as he doubtless foresaw was destined immediately to 
be renewed on a more horrible scale, he transferred 
his home and his money to Athens, where he re- 
sided for the next twenty-three years. On his re- 
turn to Rome in the year 65 he still declined to take 
any active part either in the administration of the 
State or in the decision of the great issues of the 
time. His manhood coincided almost exactly with 
the period of the Civil Wars (88-31 B.C.) ; yet through 
them all he claimed, and his claim was allowed, to 
stand neutral. It was not an exalted part to play, 
and such apathy is a danger to any commonwealth ; 
yet, as he bowed his head to each new master, the 
victory was always a little less savage, and the 
humiliation of the conquered a little less bitter, 
because Atticus was friend with all parties and 
could make his influence felt on the side of 
moderation. 

His ample wealth was husbanded by skilful man- 
agement and by frugal habits of life. Cornelius 
Nepos tells us that to his own knowledge Atticus' 
household expenses came to only ^30 a month. 
His money was always at the disposal of his friends 
in difficulties, and especially when the fortunes of 
their party were at a low ebb. As he had aided 
Marius in his hour of danger, so he befriended the 
Pompeians who were in need of money for their 
hurried flight at the beginning of the second Civil 
War. He helped and protected Terentia when 
Cicero was in exile, and Fulvia and her children when 
Antony was defeated at Mutina. 

We have here to consider mainly his life-long 



Cicero s Counsellor. 69 

friendship with Cicero. This intimacy began when 
they were fellow-students in youth, and it lasted to 
the end. In Atticus Cicero found the friend exactly 
fitted to supplement his own qualities. The warm 
impulsive heart of the one sought repose in the easy- 
tempered, stable, appreciative nature of the other. 
The impetuous, indiscreet man of genius needed a 
calm, sympathising and absolutely safe companion, 
in whose ear he could breathe all his fears and hopes 
and doubts ; through all the years of their inter- 
course never a word escaped through Atticus which 
could add to Cicero's embarrassments. It is from 
this perfect confidence that the letters to Atticus 
derive their peculiar interest and their peculiar value. 
Cicero is no more likely to deceive Atticus than a 
patient is likely to lie to his physician ; the statement 
of the circumstances which he lays before his coun- 
sellor may sometimes be erroneous, but it is never 
wilfully misleading. Cicero set the highest value on 
the judgment of his friend. At critical seasons he 
writes to him every day, and sometimes as much as 
thrice in a day. His dependence is quaintly ex- 
pressed, in a passage where he describes his per- 
plexities just before the outbreak of the Civil War. 
" Imagine the scene ; the consul names me — ' I call 
on Marcus Tullius.' What am I to say ? c Wait a little 
if you please, till I can go and consult Atticus ' ; alas 
there is no evading the question in that fashion. " * 
Moderate, sagacious, and cautious, with an on- 
looker's insight into the game, Atticus was admira- 

* The paragraph preceding this sentence will be found in its place, 
page 320. 



jo A tticus. 

bly fitted to support and to control the far greater 
intellect and finer character but less equable tempera- 
ment of his friend. His advice is commonly towards 
a safe course, and he has a constitutional dislike of 
hazardous ventures. He particularly objected to 
Cicero's rash opposition to the triumvirs in the year 
56, and if his advice had been followed Cicero would 
have escaped the humiliation which befell him after 
the conference of Luca.* So in the years immedi- 
ately following, Atticus counselled sub- 
mission and the acceptance of Caesar's 
overtures for friendship. f Nevertheless he is keenly 
interested not only in the safety but in the good 
fame 9f his friend. He recognises that while the 
Roman Knight, the man of business and of letters, 
may be permitted to make his own preservation and 
his own ease the first object, a very different stand- 
ard of conduct is set up for the consular. He sees 
that by the lofty tone of his speeches and writings 
Cicero has given hostages to public opinion which 
must not be forfeited. Atticus may go out to the 
fifth milestone to greet Caesar, as he 
returns after driving Pompey from 
Italy ; but at the same moment he encourages 
Cicero " so to bear himself that Caesar may have 
cause to respect him rather than to thank him, and at 
all risks refuse to allow himself to be dragged to 
Rome. M J Though Atticus was staggered by Pompey's 



* See page 273. 
f See page 320. 

%Ad. Att, y ix., 18, 1. Cicero's action under this advice is de- 
scribed below, page 338. 



Cicero's Man of Business. 71 

desertion of Italy, and though at first he counselled 
neutrality with a view to mediation of peace, yet 
when that hope failed it was with his full concurrence 
that Cicero betook himself to Pompey's camp. Im- 
mediately after the assassination of Caesar, Atticus 

could see, though both Cicero and 

44 b c 
Brutus were blind to it, that, whether 

or no Caesar's acts were to be confirmed, it was ruin- 
ous policy to allow a public funeral to his body, and 
that passions would thus be excited which would 
be fatal to the general amnesty.* And once more 
when six months later Cicero is on the point of re- 
tiring to Greece, we find Atticus ready to brave his 
friend's displeasure by telling. him plainly that public 
opinion will accuse him of deserting his post. Cicero, 
obedient to the call, returns at once to face Antony 
in the Senate.f If it had not been for Atticus, the 
First Philippic would never have been spoken. 

In private life, as in public, Cicero always leaned 
on Atticus. All domestic jars (and Cicero's family 
often caused him uneasiness) are reported at once 
to his friend, who always plays the part of sym- 
pathiser and sometimes that of peace-maker. All 
his business transactions likewise went through At- 
ticus' hands, and the letters are full of references 
to them. Cicero was very careless about money- 
matters ; if a house or a farm or a statue took his 
fancy, he bought first and afterwards considered how 
he was to find the money. Thus though his for- 
tune was never compromised, hardly even seriously 

* Ad Alt., xiv., 10, 1. 
f See p. 392. 



J 2 Atticus. 

embarrassed, he is constantly in small difficulties ; 
such a bill has to be met on such a day and there 
are no funds, unless that other sum which he is ex- 
pecting, be paid up to date, which is unlikely. On 
such occasions Cicero gets alarmed about his credit, 
and writes to Atticus to raise money for him at any 
cost or to sell his property at any sacrifice rather 
than allow him to appear for a moment as a defaulter. 
Atticus never grudged trouble on behalf of his 
friend. We always find that, one way or another, 
he manages to meet the call, and a few months' 
economy or a legacy, opportunely falling in, sets 
Cicero's affairs straight again. 

One business relation between the friends has a 
more permanent interest. Atticus had a large reti- 
nue of slaves, born in his house, whom he carefully 
educated and trained to act as his literary assistants. 
lt His household staff," says his biographer,* 
" though insignificant for purposes of display, was 
admirable so far as use was concerned. It comprised 
a number of highly educated slaves, excellent 
readers and copyists enough and to spare ; indeed 
there was not a footman but was able to fulfil both 
these tasks with credit." They were experts in the 
art of binding, cataloguing and arranging, and were 
at home among bookcases and titles. Atticus lent 
their skilled assistance to repair the damage done in 
Cicero's library while he was in exile, and Cicero 
was delighted with their work : " Since Tyrannio 
with their valuable aid has put my books in order, 
the house seems to have a soul breathed into it." f 

* Nepos, Vit % Att % 13. 
\AdAtt % iv. f 8, a. 3, 



Cicero s Publisher. 73 

After completing his own library, Atticus set his 
slaves to work to make extra copies of his books, 
for which he found a ready sale. Before he left 
Athens we find that he had a whole library to dispose 
of, and that Cicero marked it for his own.* " By no 
means pledge your offspring to anyone else, though 
you meet with a wooer never so ardent. I am keep- 
ing all my odd moneys for that object, and I look 
to those books as the stand-by of my old age." 
Cicero's own compositions naturally passed into the 
workshop of his friend, and Atticus became his pub- 
lisher. There was no copyright either of author or 
publisher, but the labour of Atticus' literary slaves 
doubtless brought in handsome returns to their 
master. Cicero commonly had the benefit of At- 
ticus' criticisms while each work was in progress and 
looked with anxiety for his " red pencil marks." f His 
suggestions on the Second Philippic are known to 
us from Cicero's letter in reply. When Cicero has 
put the last hand to a book, he sends Atticus word 
" now you may begin copying out." % When he re- 
solves to cancel the first version of his Academics 
and to recast the dialogue with a fresh set of inter- 
locutors, he writes,§ " You will easily console your- 
self for the loss involved in those copies which you 
have had written out to no purpose. The new ver- 
sion is more brilliant, more concise, better in every 
way." Sometimes these relations cause a momen- 
tary unpleasantness, as when Cicero finds that copies 



* Ad Att., i., 10, 4. 
f Ad AM., xvi., II, I. 
% Ad Att., iv., 13, 2. 
% Ad Att, xiii., 13, 1. 



74 A tticus. 

of the De Finibus had got abroad without his leave 
before he had put in his final corrections, and before 
the presentation copy had been sent to Brutus to 
whom the treatise was dedicated.* Though Cicero 
was not aware of it, the same thing must have 
happened in the case of the Academics, for of the 
two surviving books one belongs to the revised and 
the other to the suppressed version. Boissier re- 
marks,! that here we have publishing in its inchoate 
stage. Originally, whoever wished for a book must 
borrow it and get it copied at his own risk ; here we 
have a private gentleman employing his special fa- 
cilities to make copies for sale among his friends; in 
the next generation the Sosii family, the publishers 
of Horace, make the bringing out and selling of new 
books a regular trade. 

Atticus survived Cicero eight years. With the 
triumph of Antony all Cicero's friends were in dan- 
ger. Atticus had to fly for his life, and 
took refuge with Volumnius, an officer of 
Antony's, whom Atticus had himself concealed and 
protected, while his enemies were in power a few 
months previously. When however Antony heard 
of Atticus' kindness to Volumnius and to his own 
wife and children, he caused word to be sent that 
he had removed from the Proscription list not only 
his name but, for his sake, that of his friend Gellius 
Canus who was in hiding with him.:}: From that time 

* Ad Att., xiii., 21, 4. 

f In an interesting little monograph entitled " Atticus, editeur de 
Ciceron " (Paris, 1863). I am indebted to this work for the sub- 
stance of the whole of the preceding paragraph. 

\ Nepos, Vit. Att., 10. 



A tticus. 75 

forward Atticus was on intimate terms both with 
Antony and Octavian ; true to his usual practice he 
kept up his friendly relations with both till the end 
of his own life, though at that time 
the two were preparing for another 
civil war. Meanwhile he had accepted the interest 
of Antony * to obtain for his daughter Caecilia Attica 
the most splendid match in Rome. He married her 
to Agrippa, the prime friend and coadjutor of Octa- 
vian ; and Atticus lived to see his little grand- 
daughter Vipsania, the only issue of this marriage, 
betrothed in her cradle f to Tiberius, the stepson 
and destined successor of Augustus. Their child 
again was Drusus, who was appointed the colleague 
of his father Tiberius, and who but for his prema- 
ture death would himself have been emperor of the 
Romans. The high society of Rome considered it 
a blot on the nobility of Drusus, that there were men 
alive who could remember his great-grandfather, a 
simple Roman Knight. % 

But to return to Atticus himself. Can we forgive 
the man, who after enjoying for half a century the 
most endearing friendship with Cicero, could forget 
all and live on as the genial companion and favoured 
adherent of the men who had murdered him ? Atti- 
cus might plead that he had never failed Cicero 
while he lived, and that he could do him no good 
now, whereas there were living friends whom he 
might still help and save. When once his own 

* Nepos, ViU Att t 12. 
f Nepos, ViU Att., 19. 
\ Tac, Ann., ii., 43, 7. 



y6 A tticus. 

peace was made with the triumvirs, he was privileged 
to offer a shelter to the proscribed, and his estate 
in Epirus became a sort of unchallenged sanctuary. 
After the battle of Philippi we find him at the same 
work, and his biographer * mentions the names of 
many republicans who owed their lives and fortunes 
to Atticus. For all this, the human instinct of 
Homer is true, when he marks it as a grievous and 
a dreadful thing that Priam must needs stoop to 
what never man had borne to do before, and that 
he should put his lips to the hand which had slain 
his son. f This instinct did not touch Atticus. In 
his youth he made himself so charming to Sulla, 
that the proconsul, while he remained at Athens, 
could never bear to have him out of his sight ; he 
refused Sulla's pressing invitation to come back with 
him to Italy, on the ground that in the opposite 
camp there were friends against whom he could not 
lift a hand % » but of the dead friend Sulpicius Rufus, 
whom Sulla had murdered, he took no account. So 
it was again in his old age; and better would it 
have been for Atticus, if his name had remained on 
the Proscription List. 

Atticus cannot have been a selfish man, for he 
spent his life in doing good to his friends, at the 
cost of unceasing trouble and sometimes of serious 
danger. He must have been a lovable man, for 
every one loved him, and such affection is not to be 
gained except by a kindly and tender heart. But 

* Nepos, ViU Att % , n and 12. 
\ Homer, Iliad, xxiv., 506. 
% Nepos, Vit. Att. t 4. 





AQRIPPA AND AUGUSTUS. 
{Cohen.) 




MARCUS AGRIPPA, SON-IN-LAW OF ATTICUS. 
{Cohen.) 




DRUSUS C/ESAR, SON OF EMPEROR TIBERIUS. 

GREAT-GRANDSON OF ATTICUS. 

(Cohen.) 



Cicero s Family. 77 

he was " void of noble rage " ; he never knew that 
there are some wrongs which it is degradation to 
forgive ; he could love, but his love was never 
strong enough to cause him to hate ; and a man 
without the capacity for hatred is but half a man. 

Cicero's earliest letter to Atticus* records a do- 
mestic trouble, the death of his cousin Lucius, to 
whom he was much attached. Late in 
the previous year Cicero had lost his 
father, and his mother had been long dead. His 
immediate family circle now consisted of his brother 
and nephew and of his own wife and children. 

Shortly after his return from the East in the year 
77 B.C., Cicero had married Terentia, a lady of good 
family but, so far as we can judge, of somewhat 
harsh and unfeminine temper. Her husband said 
of her, f that she was much more likely to take on 
herself the management of the affairs of the State, 
than to allow him to meddle in the affairs of her 
household. Their eldest child was a daughter, 
Tullia, on whom her father lavished all his affection. 
Her betrothal to Piso, while yet a child, is men- 
tioned in a letter of the year 67 B.C. Cicero's only 
son, named Marcus like his father, was born in the 
summer of 65 B.C. We find frequent references to 
the children in these early letters. Now it is Tullia, 
who " insists, the little pet, on having the present 
you promised her, and calls on me as the surety ; 
but I am resolved to repudiate rather than pay up." $ 

+ AdAtt. 9 i. t 5. 
f Plutarch, Cic. t 20. 
%AdAtt. % \., 8, 2. 



yS Cicerds Family. 

___ t r 

Now, the young Marcus, at the age of six, claims a 
line at the end of his fathers letter to show off his 
first Greek writing in a postscript, " Cicero the 
small sends his love to Titus the Athenian," or 
" Cicero the philosopher sends his love to Titus the 
statesman/' 

Quintus the younger brother of Marcus Cicero 
followed his example in adopting the senatorial 
career, and rose to the praetorship. He had some 
pretensions to be a man of letters, and wrote Greek 
tragedies while campaigning in Gaul and Britain ; 
but nature had meant him for a soldier rather than 
for a student or for a statesman. His frank and 
affectionate nature was marred by a passionate and 
hasty temper, and the possession of great office did 
not awaken him to any high sense of duty or re- 
sponsibility. Marcus Cicero perhaps somewhat 
abuses an elder brother's privilege * of pointing out 
to him the error of his ways, and Quintus in turn 
sometimes chafes under the lecture ; but in spite 
of this the brothers heartily loved one another. 
Quintus married Pomponia the sister of Atticus, 
and had by her one son named after his father. 
This " Quintus the son " was spoiled, so his uncle 
thought, by the over-indulgence of his parents. He 
died nobly in the end, but his conduct as he emerged 
from boyhood was anything but satisfactory. Cicero 
always felt himself responsible for the behaviour of 
his brother and his nephew and was ever in a fidget 

* " Eas litteras ad eum misi, quibus et placarem ut fratrem et 
monerem ut minorem et objurgarem ut errantem," — Ad Att, r i. t 
5.2. 



Quintus Cicero. 79 

lest they should do something to discredit the 
family. It is needless to say that he confides his 
alarms to Atticus. One such communication may 
serve to illustrate the elder brother's uneasiness. 
When Cicero quitted Cilicia after his year of gov- 
ernorship (50 B.C.), it was a difficult question, whom 
to leave in charge of his province ; he finally resolves 
that he will not pass over his quaestor, officially the 
second in command, in favour of the higher standing 
and greater experience of his brother. In writing 
to Atticus, after a long string of arguments for this 
decision, he concludes * — " So much for reasons 
which we can give to the world ; next one for your 
private ear. I should never have a moment's peace 
for fear he should do something hasty or insolent or 
indiscreet, for such things will happen in this world. 
Then there is his son, a boy, and a boy with a 
mighty good opinion of himself ; what a vexation it 
would be ; and his father will not hear of sending 
him home, and is displeased at your suggesting it. 
Now as for the quaestor, I don't pretend to say 
what he may or may not do, but then I plague my- 
self much less about it." 

On one occasion (see below, p. 342) a darker 
cloud came between the brothers ; but though the 
evidence looks black against Quintus, the^complete 
reconciliation which followed allows us to hope that 
what looked like baseness proved to have been only 
ill-temper and indiscretion. In death they were not 
divided; and Cicero's nephew, too, redeemed a 



*AdAtt. t vi.,6, 4. 



80 Cicerds Family. 

worthless life by a heroic end. In the last dreadful 
days of the Proscription, the two brothers set forth 
together on their flight. Quintus returned with his 
son to Rome to procure supplies for their journey, 
and the two fell into the power of the head-hunters. 
They died like worthy Romans, each striving to 
sacrifice his own life for the preservation of the 
other.'* Young Marcus, the son of Cicero, alone 
survived. Like his uncle he was a gallant soldier, 
and he did good service both under Pompey and 
under Brutus ; but with the Civil War his credit 
ended ; thenceforth he was known chiefly as the 
hardest-headed toper in Rome. Nevertheless in his 
case too " the whirligig of time brings in his re- 
venges/* The pious historian f deemed it a clear 
case of the special interposition of Providence, that 
Marcus Tullius Cicero was consul in the latter part 
of the year 30 B.C., and that so it fell to his lot to 
announce in the Senate the tidings of the final 
defeat and death of Antony, and to decree the 
destruction of Antony's statues and the legal dam- 
nation of his name. 



* Dio Cassius, xlvii., 10. 
f Plutarch, Cic. t 49, 4. 




CHAPTER IV. 

CICERO AS A MAGISTRATE. 

69-63 B.C. 

HILE the case against Verres 
was still pending 

r 70 B.C. 

Cicero had been 
elected curule aedile, and in 
the year 66 B.C. he served the 
office of praetor. He had no 
difficulty in his contest for 
this magistracy, and he tells 
Atticus that he need not put 
himself out of the way to 
come to Rome to help him. There appear to 
have been two abortive attempts at a voting before 
the election was actually carried through, and on 
each occasion it was clear that Cicero was at the 
head of the poll.* 

Meanwhile political agitations were astir which 
brought Cicero for the first time to the front as an 
orator dealing directly with the affairs of the State. 




* Pro Leg. Man., I, 2. 
6 



82 Cicero as a Magistrate. [67 B.C. 

The spread of piracy in the Mediterranean became 
during these years so alarming, and the incapacity 
of the government to deal with it so obvious, that 
public opinion called for a drastic remedy. 

"Am I to tell you/' says Cicero, "that during 
these years the sea was closed to our subjects, when 
our own armies could never set forth from Brun- 
disium except in the depth of winter? Am I to 
complain to you that envoys coming from foreign 
nations have been captured, when legates of the 
Roman People have been held to ransom ? Am I 
to say that the sea was not safe for merchants, when 
twelve fasces with their axes have fallen into the 
hands of the pirates ? Will you listen to the story 
how the famous cities of Cnidus and Colophon and 
Samos and many others have been captured, when 
you know that your own harbours, and those har- 
bours which are the very channels of your life and 
breath, have been in the pirates' power ?"* And 
again — "What State was there ever before, I will 
not speak of great maritime powers such as 
Athens or Carthage or Rhodes, but what State was 
there ever so feeble, what island so petty, which 
could not by its own efforts defend its harbours 
and fields and some part of its shores and coasts ? 
Yet for many years together before the Gabinian 
Law that same Roman People, which within our 
own memory had preserved a record clean from 
defeat at sea, made a huge surrender not only of its 
interests but of its power and dignity. We, whose 



* Pro Leg. Man. y 12, 32. 



67 B.C.] Gahinian Law. 83 

ancestors overcame at sea King Antiochus and 
Perseus and the Carthaginians, we could not on any 
waters look pirates in the face. . . . And yet in 
those bad days the magistrates of the Roman 
People were not ashamed to take their stand on 
this very platform which your ancestors left to you 
adorned with the spoils of fleets and with the beaks 
torn from the ships of our enemies." * 

This reproach was quickly wiped away. In the 
year 67 B.C. Aulus Gabinius, a tribune of the plebs, 
proposed to the People that one man of consular rank 
should be invested for three years with supreme 
command over the whole Mediterranean and its 
coasts and islands, and should have all the resources 
of the Empire placed at his disposal for a great 
effort to clear the seas of pirates. The name of 
Pompey was not mentioned in the law, but it was 
certain that the popular vote would fall on him.f 
This proposal was eagerly welcomed by every rank 
in the State, except the senators. The populace of 
the capital was cut off from its supplies of grain ; the 
country-people of Italy found not even the great 
Appian Road safe from the free-booters ; the Roman 
Knights, who had business relations in all parts of 
the civilised world, suffered from an interruption of 
communications ruinous to their interests. All were 
sick of the prolonged inaction and feebleness of the 
government, and called upon it to stand aside and 
let the one efficient man do the work. In spite of 
the utmost efforts of the senatorial leaders the law 

* Pro Leg. Man., 18, 54. 
f Dio Cassius, xxxvi., 23, 5. 



84 Gabinian Law. [67 B.C. 

was passed. Pompey was then unanimously ap- 
pointed to this great charge, and the Senate was 
directed to give him all assistance in detail, an in- 
struction which the Nobles did not now venture to 
disregard.* 

The public confidence in Pompey was marked by 
an immediate relief in the corn-market, where famine 
prices had been ruling, and this confidence was 
abundantly justified by the result. Pompey made 
his preparations instantly for a systematic campaign. 
Personally and by aid of the fifteen lieutenants 
whose services he commanded, he swept the Medi- 
terranean from west to east, and drove back the 
pirates into their Cilician harbours where he soon 
compelled their surrender. Before the end of the 
summer his task was accomplished, and the seas were 
open. His triumph was due partly to the over- 
whelming force which he displayed at every point, 
partly to the mildness and clemency with which he 
received submission. Many of the freebooters 
were glad to abandon resistance and to accept pardon 
from Pompey's hands. He planted thousands of 
them in Cilician colonies, and granted them lands, 
that they might not be driven by poverty to resume 
their old trade. The anxiety of the Cretans to 
make their submission to Pompey, rather than to 
Metellus, the proconsul of the island, nearly brought 
on an armed collision between the two generals. 

In an age when, as Cicero says, f " the Roman sol- 
diers had destroyed more cities of their allies, which 

* Dio Cassius, xxxvi., 37, I. 
f Pro Leg. Man., 13, 38. 



8? i.e.] Pbmpey and the Piraks, 85 

were assigned to them for winter-quarters, than cities 
of the enemy, which they had taken by force of 
arms/' Pompey succeeded in protecting the peace- 
able provincials against his troops. His own self- 
restraint set them an example, and likewise enabled 
him sternly to repress any outrages on the part of 
his subordinates. The integrity and single-minded- 
ness of the commander contributed not a little to his 
great and startling success. " Whence came, do you 
suppose, this incredible rapidity of movement ? It 
was not any preternatural strength in his oars-men, 
nor any magic art in navigation, nor any new cur- 
rents of wind which bore him so swiftly to the ends 
of the earth. It was, that those impediments, which 
check the progress of other commanders, never 
stayed him. Greed never made him swerve from 
his path for any prey, nor lust for any beauty, nor 
any pleasant spot that he should loiter there, nor 
any famous city that he should be curious about it, 
nor any toil that he should repose after it ; and for 
the statues and pictures and all the adornments of 
Grecian towns, which others think are made for them 
to carry off, he would not so much as go to look at 
them." * 

The glories of Pompey's success are heightened 
doubtless by all the skill of the orator ; but the suc- 
cess itself was complete, indubitable, and overwhelm- 
ing, and it was the more welcome from the long 
period of distress and humiliation to which it put an 
end. In the meantime affairs in the East were fast 
approaching a serious crisis. Lucullus could conquer 

* Pro. Leg-, Man.. 14, 40. 



86 Cicero as Prcetor. [66 B.C. 

in the field, but he could not manage his troops, who 
were now in open mutiny against him. Acilius 
Glabrio had been sent to succeed Lucullus, and the 
soldiers considered this sufficient to discharge them 
of their allegiance ; although the new commander 
delayed his appearance they refused to obey the old 
one. Mithridates with the assistance of Tigranes 
had again begun to make head against the Romans; 
he had cut off and overpowered a division of the 
Roman army under Triarius before Lucullus could 
come to its assistance ; he had recovered the greater 
part of his kingdom of Pontus, and was pressing hard 
upon Cappadocia. It was evident that the Romans 
had acted prematurely when they decreed the recall 
of Lucullus under the belief that the war was practi- 
cally over; and Glabrio and Marcius Rex, the gov- 
ernors on whom would fall the responsibility of 
defending Asia were obviously not strong enough 
for the task. Everything seemed to portend a great 
disaster in the East, and all eyes turned towards the 
victorious proconsul of the seas and coasts. Manilius 
(one of the tribunes of the year 66 B.C.) gave voice to 
the general wish by a proposal that the command 
against Mithridates should be assigned to Pompey. 

A disturbance in Asia was not so much a matter of 
life and death to the mercantile class at Rome as was 
the blockade of the seas and coasts by the pirates. 
Still the interests of the Roman Knights both as 
merchants and as tax-farmers were seriously affected 
by the threatened danger, and they expected relief 
from the same hand which had just rescued them 
from the more pressing and intolerable calamity. 





COIN OF CN/EUS POMPEIUS MAGNUS. 

(Babelon.) 




MITHRIDATES. 

(Duruy.) 





COIN OF CN/EUS POMPEIUS MAGNUS, AND ONE OF HIS LEGATES, 

HEAD OF PALLAS. 

(Babelon.} 



66 B.C.] Manilian Law. 87 

They applied to Cicero, as their natural representa- 
tive and champion, to support before 
the People the proposal of Manilius.* 
Thus it was that for the first time Cicero, now- 
vested with the office of praetor, came forward on 
the Rostra and lifted up his voice no longer to a 
bench of jurors but to the assembled Roman People. 
To the Nobles, this heaping of fresh honours and 
powers on the head of the man they detested was a 
bitter necessity, against which they rebelled to the 
end. Had they possessed sagacity to penetrate the 
character of Pompey, they might have known that 
he could be safely trusted with these powers ; but 
they seem never to have truly gauged either his 
greatness or his weakness. If he had been indeed a 
man possessed with the vulgar ambition to make him- 
self a despot, this last additional grant would, no 
doubt, have concentrated in his hands force sufficient 
for the overthrow of the free State. It might well 
be argued that the Republic ought not to be thus 
laid at the mercy of any citizen, however loyal. But 
such arguments were discredited by having been 
used the year before against the Gabinian law. 
Cicero's rejoinder f is crushing: "What then is the 
burden of Hortensius* speech? That, if all power is 
to be placed in the hands of one man, Pompey is the 
most worthy recipient ; but that such a grant ought 
not to be made to him or to anyone else. That 
argument has grown stale ; it has been refuted, not 
so much by words as by events. For you, Horten* 

* Pro Leg. Man., 2, 4. ^ 

f Pro Leg. Man., 17, 53. 



88 Cicero as Prcetor. [66 B.C. 

sius, who advise us now, employed last year all your 
wealth of words and all your marvellous faculty of 
oratory in a studied and weighty speech in the Sen- 
ate against that worthy citizen Aulus Gabinius, when 
he proposed his law for appointing a single com- 
mander-in-chief against the pirates ; and again from 
this place, where I now stand, you spoke at length 
against that law to the People. Well, suppose that 
— Heaven help us !— the Roman People had then 
listened to your counsels rather than to its own 
instinct of self-preservation and to the cogency of 
fact, should we this day be enjoying this glorious 
present, and this Empire which we hold over the 
wide world ? For how could you call that an Em- 
pire, when legates and praetors and quaestors of the 
Roman People were taken captive? When neither 
the State nor its citizens could touch the supplies 
which should have come to them from all the prov- 
inces ? when every sea was so closed to us that we 
could conduct no business, private or public, across 
the water? . . . And so the Roman People 
judged that you, Hortensius, and the rest who 
agreed with you, spoke in all sincerity what you be- 
lieved to be for the best ; but it preferred, when the 
public safety was at stake, to obey the call of its own 
sufferings rather than bow to your authority. And 
so one law, one man, one year has not only freed us 
from that distress and that reproach, but has made 
us at last to be in very truth what we claimed to 
be, lords by land and by sea over all peoples and 
nations." 

The result could not be doubtful. The law of 



66 B.C.] Pompey and the East. 89 

Manilius was carried by acclamation, and Pompey 
was invested with powers hardly inferior to those 
afterwards enjoyed by Augustus. For the next five 
years he remained in the East, marching, fighting, 
and organising. Meanwhile affairs in the capital 
went on their course without his active interven- 
tion ; but amidst all the shifting scenes of parties 
and all the conflicts of statesmen, the presence in 
the background of the power of Pompey is never 
forgotten ; it is felt that whatever men may do at 
home, his must be in the end the deciding w r ilL 

Among those who most envied the great position 
of Pompey was his former colleague Crassus. Cras- 
sus was anxious to win for himself some exceptional 
command which might hold in check the power of 
his great rival. It seems probable that 
Caesar, who was now dazzling the world 
with the extravagant splendour of his shows as 
aedile, encouraged these aspirations of Crassus, and 
that the democratic party, as a whole, followed 
his lead. Though they had supported Pompey in 
the struggle over the Gabinian and Manilian laws, 
the democrats seem to have recognised more clearly 
than the Optimates, that the great soldier would not 
readily fall in with the plans of a revolutionary party. 
Crassus and Caesar looked to Egypt as the scene of 
their * operations. Crassus was censor this year, and 
he proposed to enrol Egypt in the list of provinces 
on the ground that it had been left to the Roman 
People by the Will of the last king. This king 



* Plutarch, Crass, 13, 1. Suetonius, Jul., ij. 



90 Cicero as a Magistrate. [65 B.C. 

(Ptolemy Alexander II.) had died sixteen years 
before, in 81 B.C.; but with characteristic hesitation 
the Senate had never declared whether they con- 
sidered the bequest valid or whether they meant to 
accept it. Meantime an illegitimate member of the 
family, nicknamed Auletes, or " the Piper," had 
usurped the throne, where he had been tolerated, 
though never acknowledged, by Rome.* The plans 
of Crassus with regard to Egypt were frustrated by 
his brother censor Catulus and by Cicero, f who as a 
matter of course opposed all measures directed against 
Pompey. The most that Crassus could do was to 
induce the Senate to despatch a young partisan of his, 
named Cnseus Piso, with an extraordinary command 
to Spain, where he hoped that he might raise an army 
to serve as some sort of counterpoise to that of 
Pompey. This scheme too fell through, for Piso 
was assassinated, some said by partisans of Pompey, 
not long after his arrival in his province. 

The mission of Piso to Spain is connected with a 
strange story in which we hear for the first time the 
name of that Lucius Sergius Catilina, who was des- 
tined two years later to cross Cicero's path with 
momentous consequences to them both. This " first 
conspiracy of Catiline," as it is called, is assigned to 
the end of the year 66 and the beginning of the year 
65 B.C. Crassus and Caesar are said to have been impli- 
cated in it. A plot which never came to overt acts 

* See below, p. 102. 

f Mommsen {Rom. Hist., v., ch. 5) points out that the fragments 
of the speech *' De Rege Alexandrino" prove it to have been de- 
livered at this time. 



65 B.C.] First Catilinarian Conspiracy. 91 

is a fruitful theme for speculation, and modern 
writers have expended much ingenuity in discussing 
it. The evidence is so inconclusive, and the story, 
as told, contains so many contradictions and improb- 
abilities, that I prefer to pass it over as wholly or 
almost wholly apocryphal. An assassination or a 
massacre, more or less, makes no great difference 
in our estimate of Catiline or even of Crassus; but 
it is satisfactory not to be obliged to fix this stain 
on the great name of Caesar. 

Having served the prsetorship in 66 B.C. Cicero was 
eligible for the consulship of the year 63 B.C. For a year 
before the election, that is to say from about Mid- 
summer 65 to Midsummer 64 B.C., his thoughts and ef- 
forts were constantly directed to the attainment of 
this great prize. From his own letters, and from his 
speeches on behalf of clients, and likewise from the 
" canvasser's pocket-book " of instructions (Cotnmen- 
tariolum Petitionis), which Quintus Cicero * wrote out 
for his brother's use, we get a vivid picture of a con- 
tested election at Rome. 

Questions of party or policy hold but a small 
place in these contests. There is nothing answering 
to the modern " caucus," and it is rarely that we hear 
of the selection of candidates who are to forward the 
interests of a party or can claim its united support. 
It was not even expected that a competitor for office 
should put forth any political creed or announce 
what " platform " he adopted ; rather it seems to have 
been considered proper for the aspirant to office, 

* The genuineness of this little treatise has been questioned, but 
not, to my mind, on sufficient grounds. 



gi Roman Blutioni. 

while striving to produce the general impression of 
statesmanlike qualities, to efface his particular con- 
victions as much as possible, and not to touch on the 
burning questions of the day * for fear of giving of- 
fence to any party or section in the State. The 
explanation of this strange divorce between politics 
and electioneering is not far to seek. In modern 
States there is what the French call " solidarity " 
between the different members of the executive 
government, so that votes at elections are practically 
given for a whole group of men united by common 
convictions under a common chief, who are to un- 
dertake, not only the business of administration, but 
the responsibility of initiative and the duty of guid- 
ing the policy of the State. But in the Roman 
Republic the function of the magistrate is much 
more limited. The Senate, and not the magistrate, 
advises and directs ; and, while he keeps within con- 
stitutional limits, the magistrate does not use his 
formal power of initiative in legislation except under 
the Senate's instructions. It is noticeable that the 
revolutionary faction at Rome, which never respected 
the constitutional rules and always, when it was 
strong enough, carried through its measures on the 
bare initiative of a magistrate, had an organisation 
more resembling that of modern parties, and tried 
to elect magistrates in order to carry out schemes of 
policy and legislation by their means. But this is 
the exception and not the rule. The regular practice 
is that, as each magistrate has under the constitution 



*Q. Cicero, De Pet. Cons., 13, 53. 



Roman Elections. 93 

a personal though limited power co-ordinate with 
that of his colleagues and not a joint power as 
member of a Board or Cabinet, so in the contest for 
magistracies each man is chosen separately and in- 
dependently and each must " fight for his own hand." 
An election to the consulship is the advance of an 
individual in the official career, and the door of ad- 
mission to the most dignified order in the State, not 
the triumph of a party or of a principle. The 
aspirant does not wait to be adopted as the repre- 
sentative of a party, whether as the reward for past 
services or in hopes that he will carry out its politi- 
cal programme. If to high nobility and connections 
he unites a decent character and tolerable capacity, 
he drifts naturally to the front * ; if he be the son 
of a Roman Knight, destitute of the advantages of 
aristocratic lineage, he must force his way by per- 
sonal exertions. In either case it is a question " of 
men, not of measures." 

The ideal Roman elector was supposed to look to 
the merit or "dignity," as it was called of the can- 
didate, resting partly on a man's ancestry, partly on 
his own services to the State at home or abroad. 
But " merit " was always liable to be overridden by 
" favour " ; " each man who votes considers more 
frequently what claims the candidate has on him, 



* When Domitius Ahenobarbus was cut out of his hopes of the 
consulship of 55 B.C. by the unexpected and irresistible candidature of 
Pompey and Crassus, Cicero exclaimed (Ad Atl. t iv., 8, b. 2) : 
" What can be more annoying than for him, who has been designated 
for the consulship since his cradle, to miss it when his turn comes." 
After all Domitius was only put off till the next year. 



94 Roman Elections. 

than what claims he has on the commonwealth," * 
To gain this personal favour was the first business of 
the candidate. To this end he must be constantly 
in evidence, and habituate the people to his pres- 
ence ; his face and manner must be familiar in their 
daily surroundings. " I perceived," says Cicero of 
himself, f " that the ears of the Roman People were 
somewhat dull but their eyes quick and keen ; and 
so *I ceased to trouble myself as to what men might 
hear of me from a distance, but took care that they 
should see me in person. I lived in public, I fre- 
quented the Forum, no one was ever kept from 
seeing me by my porter or by my slumbers." In 
apportioning their good-will the electors kept a 
strict note of what each candidate had done or 
was prepared to do in the way of amusing them. 
"The Roman people dislikes private luxury, but 
it loves public magnificence ; it has no liking for 
sumptuous banquets, but it hates shabbiness and 
ungraciousness." % Cicero tells of one rich man who 
was always unsuccessful in his candidatures, because 
he was thought to have shirked the aedileship, and 
of another of great family and reputation who 

" lent his ears 
To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur," 

and by an unlucky display of philosophic frugality 
on a great occasion lost his chance of the praetor- 

* Pro Plancio, 4, 10. 

f This is the sequel to the story of Cicero's return after his Sicilian 
quaestorship, see p. 22. 
\ Pro Mur., 36, 76. 



Roman Elections. 95 

ship. On the other hand there was a feeling that 
the man who had sufficiently dazzled the people by 
his entertainments would never ask for their votes 
in vain. It was on this account that the aediles ran- 
sacked the world for the gift of wild beasts and the 
loan of works of art, that Caesar displayed gladiators 
in silver panoply, and that Scaurus invented his 
movable theatres, which when the plays were over 
were wheeled round, spectators and all, so as to 
form an amphitheatre for the exhibition of the fight- 
ing. "You have no right, " says Cicero,* "to cast 
such scorn on the tastefulness of Murena's games or 
the magnificence of his scenery, which were strong 
points in his favour. Why should I observe, what 
is obvious, that it is the populace and the crowd of 
ignorant men who are so much caught by games ? 
There is no great wonder in that. But that is 
enough for my argument ; for the elections lie with 
this same common multitude. . . . Men do enjoy 
the games, you may take my word for it, and not 
only those who frankly acknowledge their interest, 
but those who pretend not to care. This was 
brought home to me when I was a candidate, for I 
too had the magnificence of a rival's scenery against 
me; and if I, who had given three sets of games 
myself, was staggered by those of Antonius, do you 
suppose that you, who as it happened had not 
given any, were not put at a disadvantage by these 
very silver fittings of Murena's stage at which you 
scoff?" 



* ProMur. % 19 38. 



96 Roman Elections. [65 B.C. 

In Cicero's own case it was mainly the influence 
gained by his practice at the bar which won him the 
consulship. His brother puts this in the forefront 
of his advantages : " You will have your fame as an 
orator to counterbalance your want of noble birth." 
The Roman advocate was forbidden to accept a fee, 
but he expected to be repaid by the personal exer- 
tions of the client and his friends at the next elec- 
tion ; " you must take care," writes Quintus, " that 
they are as good as their word ; you must constantly 
remind, ask, exhort and look after them, that they 
may understand that they will never have another 
opportunity of showing their gratitude." Each 
brief undertaken thus formed a centre of influence 
and of support for the successful pleader. We hear 
much of the aid given by friends and partisans. In 
Murena's contested election, for instance, his step- 
son had feasted his young comrades in the eques- 
trian centuries, his chief engineer had hired seats at 
the games for his fellow-tribesmen, a Vestal, his 
kinswoman, had placed her stall at the disposal of 
the candidate. These proceedings, so Cicero argued 
with success, did not come within " the blow of the 
law " ; " all such observances count among the 
dues of friendship, the gratifications of the humbler 
classes, the attentions looked for from a candidate." 

The Roman elector expected to be asked and even 
entreated for his vote. He was not displeased if 
he were asked more than once. This required great 
personal exertions on the part of the candidate and 
his friends. Quintus urges his brother never to be 
out of the way, and never to give anyone the oppor- 



65 B.C.] Canvassing. 97 

tunity to say " that, so far as he was concerned, you 
might have had what you wished, if he had been 
asked by you and asked with earnestness and insist- 
ence." Nearly a year before the actual election 
there commenced the process of preliminary canvas- 
sing, prensatio or " hand-shaking/' as it was called. 
It was a great point for the candidate to be able 
to address each voter by his name, and to aid him 
in this he had specially trained slaves, whose business 
it was to make themselves acquainted with the faces 
of the citizens and to whisper the name of each in 
his master's ear as he approached him. "O fie! 
for shame, Cato ! " exclaims Cicero, as he banters the 
precisian statesman who is trying to upset the elec- 
tion of Murena,* " is it possible that you can do 
such a thing? are you not deceiving? are you not 
using your slave's memory to act a lie to your fellow- 
citizens ? is this consistent with principle ? can such 
a practice bear to be weighed in your philosophic 
scales?" f 

As " nothing succeeds like success," it is import- 
ant for a candidate to produce the impression that 
he is assured of overwhelming support. He must 
lose no opportunity of advertising his strength, and 
for this purpose must collect an imposing array of 
" followers." To take part in such a following is an 
attention which the humblest can offer, and on that 
ground Cicero defends the practice against Cato's 
strictures. % " ' What need is there,' says Cato, ' for 

* See below, p. 131. 
f Pro Mur. t 36, 77, 
% Pro Mtir. , 34, 70. 
7 



98 Canvass for Consulship. [64 B.C. 

followers ? ' What a question to put to me of all 
people, ' what need is there ' for that which we 
have all of us always practised ! The one oppor- 
tunity, which men of humble rank have of earning 
the thanks and repaying the kindnesses of those in 
our station, is the service and attendance which they 
give in our candidatures. Senators and Roman 
Knights cannot spend all the day in following about 
their friends when canvassing, and no one expects it 
of them. If they call at your house each morning, 
and occasionally escort you down to the Forum and 
honour you with their company for one turn along 
the colonnade, you think that they have shown 
ample consideration and observance. Constant at- 
tendance is the special task of our humbler friends, 
whose time is more at their own disposal, and of 
these a kindly and charitable man is sure to have no 
lack. Do not be so anxious then, Cato, to rob the 
lower classes of their sole chance of showing their 
dutifulness ; allow those, who look to us for all sorts 
of favours, to retain one favour which they can con- 
fer on us. If such a one has nothing to give but his 
single vote, that seems a petty boon ; if he wishes 
to canvass for us, he has no influence. As they say 
themselves, they cannot speak for us, they cannot 
give security for us, they cannot invite us to their 
houses ; such attentions they expect to receive from 
us, and they think that their only means of acknowl- 
edgment is this personal service." 

All this elaborate machinery of canvassing was 
worked with untiring assiduity by Cicero when he 
stood for the consulship. It may be doubted, how- 



64 B.C.] Election as Consul. 99 

, _i . 

ever, whether he would have had an easy victory, if 
he had not been aided by an external circumstance. 
The candidature of Catiline and Antonius began to 
alarm the constitutional party. Already during the 
early summer of the year 64 B.C. Catiline had begun to 
lay the foundations of a desperate conspiracy against 
the State. His plans got abroad through the vapour- 
ings of one of his associates, a foolish young spend- 
thrift, to his mistress. The woman gave information 
to the government, and the Nobles, who had hitherto 
looked askance on Cicero's candidature, now with- 
drew their opposition.* Cicero was returned by ac- 
clamation at the top of the poll, and Antonius headed 
Catiline by a few votes for the second place. Caius 
Antonius was a man of high birth but of indifferent 
character and small reputation, who had been closely 
connected with Catiline, and who was supposed to 
be ready to give at least a passive support to his 
plans. Cicero's first effort was to detach him from 
the conspiracy, and he purchased his support by 
giving up to him the lucrative province of Macedonia. 
Thus fortified Cicero entered on his consulship on 
the 1st of January 63 B.C. 

The year began with an attempt on the part of 
the democrats to renew the efforts, which they had 
made under the guidance of Crassus 

° 63 B.C. 

two years before, to win for themselves 
some base of operations independent of the power 
of Pompey. This time, the scheme took the well- 
known form of an Agrarian Law. A tribune of the 

♦Sallust, Cat., 23. 

1 



ioo Cicerds Consulship. [63 B.C. 

plebs, Publius Servilius Rullus, proposed that there 
should be a great distribution of land to the poorer 
citizens. But where was the land to be found ? As 
the result, partly of the legislation of the Gracchi, 
partly of the reactionary measures which had fol- 
lowed their death, the whole of the public land 
which had formerly been held by the great squatters 
had ceased to belong to the State. It was now the 
property of individual Romans, and the agrarian 
agitators of the Roman Republic, though they often 
disregarded equitable rights of occupancy hallowed 
by long prescription, never mentioned the confisca- 
tion of what was legally private property. Some 
fresh public land had indeed been provided for this 
generation through the appropriation by the State 
of the lands of towns and individuals that had stood 
against Sulla, and the occupiers of these lands might 
well fear eviction. But Rullus protested that he 
had no such design. He even introduced a clause 
making all such land the absolute property of the 
present occupiers, or else paying them its money 
value in case they preferred to get rid of it. There 
remained only a small district round Capua, which, 
because the tenants of this land paid a rack-rent to 
the State, had escaped distribution in the age of the 
Gracchi. This Rullus proposed to parcel out, 
though the Treasury could ill bear the loss of the 
rent. 

But this was the most modest feature of the bill. 
Rullus* commissioners were further empowered to 
sell the whole of the property of the Roman People 
beyond the seas, in order with the money so obtained 



63 B.C.] Speech against Rullus. 101 

to buy land in Italy for distribution. The project 
seems so extraordinary that we could hardly believe 
it, if the very words of this clause had not been pre- 
served to us by Cicero.* " All lands, places, buildings 
— what is there besides ? Well there is much prop- 
erty in slaves, cattle, gold, silver, ivory, raiment, 
furniture and so forth. What are we to say ? Did 
he think it would not look modest if he named all 
these things ? He has never shown any signs of such 
scrupulosity. What then? He thought it would be 
tedious, and feared that he might omit something ; 
so he simply added, or anything else. Everything 
therefore outside Italy, which has become the prop- 
erty of the Roman People in the first consulship of 
Sulla or since that date, is ordered to be sold by the 
decemvirs. I say, Romans, that by this clause all 
peoples, nations, provinces and kingdoms are granted 
away and committed to the sole authority, judgment, 
and power of the decemvirs. For first I would ask, 
what place in the world is there of which they may 
not assert that it has become the property of the 
Roman People ? For when the person who asserts 
has the power of pronouncing judicially on the ques- 
tion, where need he draw the line in his assertions ? 
It will be convenient to maintain that Pergamus, 
Smyrna, Tralles, Ephesus, Miletus, Cyzicus, in fact 
the whole of Asia, which has been recovered since 
that consulship, has become the property of the 
Roman People. . . . Then there is Alexandria 
and the whole of Egypt ; how secretly it is smuggled 



* Contra Rullum^ ii., 15, 38, et seq. 



102 Cicero s Consulship. [63 B.C. 

in, how all mention of it is avoided, how cunningly 
it is handed over to the decemvirs. You all of you 
know, that it is said that this kingdom became the 
property of the Roman People under the Will of 
King Alexander. Now on this matter I, as consul 
of the Roman People, not only pronounce no judg- 
ment, but decline to express any opinion. For the 
question seems to me too difficult, I will not say to 
decide, but even to discuss. I see that there are 
some who assert that such a Will was made, and 
that the Senate committed itself to the acceptance 
of the inheritance, when after the death of Alexan- 
der it sent envoys to Tyre to claim possession of 
moneys which he had deposited there. I remember 
to have heard Lucius Philippus repeatedly assert 
this in the Senate ; and I take it that almost all are 
agreed that the person who occupies the throne at 
present is not of royal birth and has none of the 
qualities of a King. On the other side it is main- 
tained, that no such Will exists, that it is unbecom- 
ing in the Roman People to seem to be grasping at 
the possession of kingdoms ; that our citizens will 
be tempted to migrate to that country on account 
of the richness of the soil and the abundance which 
reigns there. Well, on this momentous question 
who is to be judge but Rullus and the rest of the 
commissioners his colleagues ? and a famous decision 
they will make of it surely ! " 

Thus under cover of an Agrarian Law the demo- 
cratic leaders seem to have designed to secure for 
themselves the control of the powerful province, 
which would as they hoped enable them to treat 



63 B.C.] Speech against Rullus. 103 

with Pompey on equal terms. This unlimited power 
of raising money was supplemented by an equally 
wide discretion in spending it. The decemvirs were 
empowered to buy lands and plant colonies in what- 
ever part of Italy they chose, or rather, says Cicero, 
to occupy the strategical points of the country with 
their garrisons, " keen partisans, eager for violence, 
ready for rebellion, who at a word from the decem- 
virs can be armed against the citizens and let loose 
for slaughter/ ' * 

Respecting the " Ten Kings," as Cicero calls them, 
who were to be set up by the law, two things were 
certain : first, that Rullus would, under the machinery 
proposed, practically have the nomination of them ; 
and secondly, that Pompey was not to be one of 
them. While other existing magistrates were eligi- 
ble, Pompey was excluded, almost by name, through 
a clause which required the personal appearance of 
each candidate in the Forum ; "and can you doubt/' 
says Cicero, f " that certain persons are seeking for 
domination and supremacy over the whole State, 
when you see that they keep out that man who, as 
they plainly perceive, will be the defender of your 
liberties ?" 

The bill as it stood was fairly open to Cicero's 
strictures. At the same time we need not suppose 
that its promoters were so foolish as to intend to 
bring about any immediate conflict with Pompey. 
If the bill had been carried, Caesar would doubtless 
have persuaded his colleagues on the commission to 

* Contra Rullum, ii., 30, 82. 
f Contra Rullum^ ii., 10, 25. 



104 Cicero's Consulship. L63B.C. 

avoid carefully any interference with Asia Minor or 
Syria or the Greek islands. Possibly he might have 
made it a merit with Pompey, to refrain from any 
action which could trench on this, Pompey's un- 
doubted sphere of influence. At any rate the game 
of the democratic party was to allow Pompey to 
settle the East as he pleased and to return quietly 
to Rome, while they established a rival power for 
themselves in Egypt or elsewhere. Meanwhile they 
would have ample means at their disposal to provide 
for their more hungry partisans, and so to put off 
any premature attempts at revolution. 

It may be doubted whether Cicero himself fully 
understood the plan on which Caesar was working 
when he encouraged Rullus to propose this law. 
The main lines of that plan can now be clearly 
traced by the light of Caesar's subsequent action in 
Gaul ; but at the moment they were not so obviously 
discernible. In the meantime, however, it was quite 
clear that a blow was being aimed at Pompey, and 
Cicero justly thought that it was his first business to 
parry that blow. If the main object of the bill was 
dangerous to the future peace of the State and the 
stability of the constitution, the most tempting points 
for criticism were those which seemed to portend a 
speedy collision with Pompey. On these Cicero di- 
rected his main attack, and the bill was so loosely 
and clumsily drawn that it was easy to construe its 
provisions as an outrage on Pompey's dignity. All 
the sources of revenue with which Pompey had en- 
riched the State, all the kingdoms and cities which 
he had conquered, and whose affairs he was in the 



63 B.C.] Speech against Rullus. 105 

act of regulating, might be claimed by the rival 
power. The very ground on which Pompey was 
encamped might be sold under his feet by virtue of 
this law. " Pompey," he says,* " is determined that 
whatever you decide, he will consider that he must 
bear it ; but he will take good care, you may be 
sure, that whatever you cannot bear, he will not 
permit you to be compelled to bear it longer than 
you please." 

" Are these," Cicero asks in another place, f " the 
plans of sober men or the dreams of wine-bibbers ? 
Are they the calculations of sense, or the extrava- 
gances of lunacy ? " The answer doubtless is, that 
the promoters of the bill can have hoped to carry a 
scheme, manifestly directed against Pompey, only 
on the supposition that he was too far off to trouble 
himself about their machinations, and that his friends 
in Rome would not honestly and fearlessly maintain 
his cause. In this they were disappointed ; Cicero 
at once came forward, and in a series of spirited and 
effective speeches exposed the nature and object of 
the scheme. He directs many arguments against 
the promoters, but one is really sufficient, namely 
that the bill is a studied attack on the position of 
Pompey ; with the name of Pompey he always 
couples the liberty and the greatness of Rome. He 
sums up the whole matter at the end of the third 
speech — " Is any one of you disposed for violence, 
for crime, for massacre ? Not one. And yet it is 
for men who will do all these things that the land of 

* Contra Rulhim, ii., 23, 62. 
f Contra Rit,lly<m % i. t I, j. 



io6 Cicero s Consulship. [63 B.C. 

Campania and the great city of Capua is reserved. 
An army is being got together against yourselves, 
against your liberty, against Cnaeus Pompeius. Capua 
is set up against this city ; bands of desperate ruffians 
against you ; the ten chiefs against Pompey." 

When once the bill was put in its true light, as 
an act of war on Pompey, public opinion declared 
against it. Cicero was listened to with marked fa- 
vour by the multitude. — " They gave up to him," 
says Pliny, 45 ' " the Agrarian Law, that is to say, their 
own bread." One of the other tribunes announced 
that he would veto the bill, and its chances were 
so hopeless that Rullus presently withdrew it of his 
own accord. 

The next six months may be passed lightly over. 
The consul is recorded to have pacified by a con- 
january to ciliatory speech the popular resentment 

June# against Roscius Otho, who four years 

previously had restored to Cicero's friends, the 
Knights, their reserved seats in the theatre. A little 
later we find him resisting an attempt to remove the 
political disabilities with which Sulla had affected 
the children of those who had been put to death in 
the great Proscription. Cicero acknowledged that 
the proposal was humane and righteous, but he suc- 
ceeded in persuading not only the people but the 
very victims of the existing law themselves, f that it 
was ill-timed. Strange to say, the same considera- 
tions seem to have kept Caesar during his consulship 
and the triumvirs during their period of supremacy 

* Pliny, Hist, Nat., vii., 30, 116. 
f Pliny, Hist. JVat., vii., 30, 116. 



63 B.C.] Trial of Rabirius. 107 

from meddling with Sulla's arrangement, and it was 
not until the year 49 B.C., while the second Civil War 
was in progress, that this relic of the first was re- 
moved. 

Cicero does not appear to have taken any part 
against a harmless but popular measure proposed by 
the tribune Labienus, which restored to the people 
under certain restrictions the power of electing the 
members of the great priestly colleges. The first 
effect of the change was to place in strong light the 
overwhelming personal popularity of Caesar. The 
supreme dignity of Pontifex Maximus was now 
vacant, and Caesar, though as yet he had served no 
office higher than the aedileship, appeared as a can- 
didate, and was elected by a great majority over 
the heads of all the most distinguished members of 
the senatorial party, including the aged and revered 
Catulus. 

Labienus and Caesar were next found united in a 
fanciful project, which seems to have been intended 
as a sort of manifesto of principle on the side of the 
democratic party. Thirty-seven years previously 
the tribune Saturninus had been put to death in 
consequence of an armed riot during which he had 
seized on the Capitol. The Senate by special decree 
had empowered the Consul Marius to act against 
him, and on the strength of this decree Saturninus 
and his associates had been overpowered and mas- 
sacred. Caesar and Labienus now affected to re- 
habilitate the memory of Saturninus and to protest 
against such proceedings on the part of the Senate, 
by bringing to trial an aged senator named Caius 



108 Cicero's Consulship. [63 B.C. 

Rabirius, who had avowedly taken part in the attack 
on Saturninus, and who, as his accusers asserted 
(though he seems to have proved the contrary), had 
actually struck the fatal blow. For the purpose of 
this trial an imposing though somewhat childish dis- 
play of constitutional antiquarianism was provided. 
On the one side there was furbished up the " rugged 
formula of the old law," * which was said to have been 
invented by King Tullus Hostilius for the trial of 
that Horatius who stabbed his sister for lamenting 
her lover, the fallen champion of Alba. On the 
other side an equally obsolete contrivance enabled 
the praetor Metellus Celer to break up the assembly 
by striking the red flag on the Janiculum, which in 
old times was the sign that the Etruscans were at 
the gates, and that the burghers must run to arms. 
Cicero spoke to the people on behalf of Rabirius ; 
but the proceedings were not intended to be very 
serious ; the assembly was allowed to disperse, and 
Labienus and Caesar, though they might have brought 
on the case again another day, let the matter quietly 
drop. 

Only two legislative measures bore the super- 
scription of Cicero's name as consul. The first was 
a law heightening the penalties for corrupt practices 
at elections. An opposing advocate once wittily 
suggested that Cicero must have passed it " in order 
to furnish his perorations with more touching appeals 
to the feelings of the jurors." f The second measure 
relates to honorary or, as they were called, M free 

* " Lex horrendi carminis," Livy, i., 26. 
f Pro Plancio, 34, 83. 



63 B.C.] Cicero s Consulship. 109 

embassies," which enabled a senator to travel in the 
provinces at the public expense. A law was passed 
by Cicero limiting the power of the Senate to grant 
such commissions. They were now never to be ex- 
tended beyond the period of one year. Cicero tells 
us * that he wished to abolish them altogether, but 
was thwarted by the opposition of a tribune. 

I have hitherto noticed those actions of Cicero, as 
consul, which had no direct bearing on the Catili- 
narian conspiracy. So far we have the record of a 
useful and creditable but by no means a brilliant 
year of office. We must now turn to the more stir- 
ring events which have made Cicero's consulship 
famous in the history of the world. 

* De Leg., iii., 8, 18. 




CHAPTER V. 

CICERO AND CATILINE. 
63 B.C. 



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IN describing the conspiracy of 
Catiline we lie under one grave 
disadvantage. Atticus was by 
Cicero's side throughout this 
period, and no letters passed 
between them ; and so the de- 
tail of events, as they appeared 
from day to day, is wanting. 
We cannot, as in each subse- 
quent crisis of Cicero's life, re- 
construct an absolutely trustworthy picture of his 
plans, his hopes, and his fears. We cannot say posi- 
tively what Cicero knew or believed about Catiline 
at the moment, but only what the consul chose to 
announce to the world. Our main authority is the 
collection of four speeches which Cicero delivered to 
the Senate or the people during the last two months 
of his consulship. The accounts of the later writers, 
Appian, Plutarch, and Dio Cassius, are probably 
founded to some extent on Cicero's own story as told 

no 



63 B.C.] 



Catiline. 1 1 1 



in the lost treatise on his consulship. Besides these 
we possess the monograph of Sallust on the Catilin- 
arian conspiracy. This as the work of a contemporary 
and a Caesarian is of especial value. We have the 
satisfaction of finding that the writer on the Caesarian 
side gives substantially the same account of the con- 
spirators and their plans as that which we gather from 
Cicero's own speeches. In presence of this agreement 
we may feel pretty confident that we have a story 
trustworthy and correct in its main outlines. 

Lucius Sergius Catilina was a member of an ancient 
patrician family which had been famous in the early 
days of the Republic, but which had long fallen into 
obscurity. None of its members had attained the 
consulship during the last two hundred years, and 
the name of the Sergii is scarcely mentioned in the 
history of the period when Rome was conquering 
and ruling the world. 

During the Civil War Catiline had been a partisan 
of Sulla and had taken an active part in the bloody 
work of the Proscription. His brother was one of the 
victims, and a dark story ran that the infamy which 
Lepidus earned in later years had been anticipated 
in the first Proscription, and that Catiline was him- 
self responsible for the insertion of his kinsman's 
name in the list.* Since then he had risen through 
the various magistracies till he attained the govern- 
ment of Africa as pro-praetor. After his return he 
was accused of extortion on evidence which Cicero, 
though he thought of accepting a brief for the 



* Plutarch, Sulla, 32, 2. 



112 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

defence, evidently believed to be overwhelming.* 
He was acquitted by the jury, but according to 
Quintus Cicero f the verdict cost him a ruinous sum 
in bribes. At any rate we find him immediately 
afterwards overwhelmed with debt, and ready for des- 
perate methods of extrication. He had by this time 
completely deserted his old party and was among 
the most violent members of the opposition. The 
hopes which the democrats had of useful service 
from him are attested by Caesar's action when in 64 
B.C. he brought to trial the assassins of Sulla's Pro- 
scription. Everyone knew that Catiline had been 
a ring-leader amongst these ; but Caesar, who 
throughout his life let by-gones be by-gones when- 
ever he had any present purpose to serve, screened 
him from punishment. In private life Catiline was 
known to be both dissolute and unscrupulous. He 
had many of the qualities necessary for a revolution- 
ary chief — a powerful frame, a fearless temper, great 
capacity for endurance, a ready tongue, and a faculty 
of adapting himself to his company and winning 
familiarity with good and bad alike. At the same 
time he was hopelessly deficient, as the event showed, 
in the most essential qualifications of a leader, the 
cool head, the keen eye for the real forces to be 
dealt with, and the power of co-ordinating means to 
ends. 

We have seen that in the years of Pompey's 
absence the democratic party under its recognised 
leaders Caesar and Crassus was engaged in fruitless 

* Ad Att., i., i, 1, " si judicatum erit meridie non lucere." 
f De Pet. Cons., 3, 10. 



63 B.C.] The Democratic Party. 113 

attempts to establish itself as a power independent 
both of the Senate and of Pompey. This was the 
object of the attempt of Crassus, as censor, on Egypt 
in 65 B.C. and of the Agrarian Law of Rullus in 63 
B.C. It must be supposed that Caesar and his asso- 
ciates counted on the political shortsightedness of 
both Pompey and the Senate to frustrate any cordial 
action between the two until the new power should 
have grown too strong to be successfully resisted. A 
consummation closely resembling this actually re- 
sulted some years later when Csesar established him- 
self in Gaul, so that the project must be deemed not 
wholly chimerical, if only the first step could be 
safely taken. This first step was however prevented 
on both occasions, by Catulus and by Cicero. In 
the meantime the democrats had striven hard to 
gain possession of the consulship. Catiline and 
Antonius were supported by all the efforts of the 
party against Cicero in 64 B.C. and Catiline again at 
the next year's elections. An active and unscrupu- 
lous man like Catiline, once possessed of the consul- 
ship, would have been able to help forward the long- 
cherished schemes of the party, and if at the same 
time he could have found means to shake off the 
burden of his debts and to provide for himself in 
the future, he might easily have been induced to con- 
fine his operations within the limits prescribed by 
his more sober coadjutors. Crassus and Csesar could 
have kept Catiline quiet by flinging him a rich prov- 
ince to worry, just as Cicero converted Catiline's 
associate Caius Antonius by the gift of Macedonia. 

The frustration of these plans brought to light the 

8 - -_ 



H4 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

weak point in the position of the democrats. They 
had within their ranks men who could not afford to 
wait, to whom the want of immediate success meant 
absolute ruin ; these could not be withheld from at- 
tempts which in their failure brought discredit on 
the democratic party, but which, if they had suc- 
ceeded, would have destroyed that party altogether 
and profited no one but Pompey. At the head of 
this desperate class was Catiline himself, and around 
him were other men of high family whom reckless 
luxury and extravagance had brought to the verge 
of bankruptcy and ruin. If these men could see 
their way clear to a political revolution, they might 
hope to restore their fortunes in a general scramble 
for the good things of the government ; but, if they 
were debarred from this chance, they were resolved 
to fall back on counsels of despair, and, as Catiline 
afterwards put it, " to extinguish the fire which would 
consume them by bringing down the roof-tree on the 
top of it." * The evil precedents of Marius and of 
Sulla appealed with fatal seductiveness to these 
ruined aristocrats. A civil war, a massacre, a pro- 
scription, a confiscation appeared things possible and 
hopeful. They could point to men who in the late 
troubles had suddenly emerged from poverty to 
enormous wealth and from obscurity to domination.f 
Their power of judgment was impaired, partly by the 
dazzling contrast of these hopes with their present 
embarrassments, partly by the deluding atmosphere 
of secret cabals in which the vapou rings and day- 

*Sallust, Cat., 31, 9. Cicero, Pro. Mur., 25, 51. 
f Sallust, Cat., 37, 6. 



63 B.C.] The Conspiracy. 115 

dreams of one hour are apt to become the fixed 
ideas of the next, and above all perhaps by the im- 
patience of weakness which, when once men have 
begun to conspire, makes them feel that suspense is 
intolerable and that something, no matter what, must 
be done. To eyes so blinded the occasion seemed 
not unfavourable. The noble conspirators, though 
their fortunes were hopelessly undermined, still kept 
up the show of wealth and profusion, and could 
command the services of armed slaves, of clients and 
of retainers. Rome was full as Sallust tells us * of 
fugitive rascals from all the world ; the remnant of 
the sufferers by the last revolution likewise lingered 
on there in hopeless poverty. These would be ready 
enough for deeds of bloodshed ; and the mass of the 
populace crowded together in a great city without 
industry, pauperised by doles of State corn, puffed 
up with the conceit that they were the masters of 
the world and yet painfully conscious that they 
gained little either in comfort or in dignity by their 
pre-eminence, would, it was thought, welcome a dis- 
turbance in which they might hope to gain, while at 
the worst they had nothing to lose. In the country 
towns of Italy the conspirators though they might 
number in their ranks some Italians of good posi- 
tion f who had been drawn into the vortex of fash- 
ionable life in the capital, would find little favour 
with the rank and file of the citizens, who were 
sounder and more industrious than the masses in 
Rome itself ; but they counted that the country-folk 

* Sallust, Cat., 37, 5. 
•j- Sallust, Cat., 17, 4, 



n6 Catilinarzan Conspiracy. [63 B.C. 

would be slow to move, and that they would have 
time to strike the great blow before a sufficient force 
could be raised against them. On the other hand 
Sulla had stored up for them an ample supply of 
revolutionaries in the very men whom he had in- 
tended to be the guardians of his government. The 
veterans * of his Asiatic army were richly rewarded 
from the spoils of the conquered party, and were 
planted out as colonists over Italy : it was supposed 
that their interests had been effectually bound up 
with the maintenance of Sulla's ordinances. But 
these professional soldiers seem not to have made 
good farmers. Some of them had sold their hold- 
ings and gone to swell the pauper population of 
Rome, others remained, having squandered their 
donatives and involved themselves in debt, and 
these naturally looked for a fresh call to civil war as 
the best means of restoring their fortunes. 

While these resources lay ready to the hand of the 
conspirators, the forces at the disposal of the gov- 
ernment were invitingly weak. There was no garri- 
son and no tolerable police force in the city of Rome ; 
the officers and public slaves who attended the 
magistrates might be overpowered by a resolute gang 
of assassins, especially if their attention could be 
distracted by the alarm of fire in various parts of the 
city. The only efficient army of the State was far 
away with Pompey in Asia, and all the troops avail- 
able were a few cohorts in Cisalpine Gaul and the 
scanty retinue of two commanders, Lucius Lucullus 



♦Sallust, Cat, 28, 4. 



63 B.C.] Casar and Catiline. 1 1 7 

and Marcius Rex, who were waiting for their triumphs 
outside the city gates. 

On these considerations the schemes of this party 
within a party were based. A military force was to 
be raised in Upper Italy which was to advance as 
quickly as might be on the city ; its approach was to 
be the signal for fire-raising within the walls, which 
would, it was hoped, give the opportunity for a sud- 
den assault. Catiline was to seize the government 
with the same title of consul, which Marius and 
Cinna had borne, there was to be a general abolition 
of debt and, recall of condemned criminals, and the 
old story of massacre and confiscation was to be 
renewed. 

It will now be clear how widely the plans of 
Catiline differed from those of Caesar. The revolu- 
tion projected by the great leaders of the democratic 
party was an elaborate and far-reaching scheme. It 
recognised the fact that Rome was no longer the 
chief strategical point, and that the first requisite 
was a base of operations in the provinces. A remote 
country such as Spain or Egypt would be the best 
fitted for the silent equipment of an armed force 
which might eventually co-operate with partisans at 
home. To train an army for civil war and generals 
fit to command it must needs occupy, if not so long 
a stretch of time as Caesar afterwards employed in 
the same task in Gaul, at least several years of hard 
fighting with enemies who were to be sought on the 
frontiers of the Empire. In the meantime the rival 
interests in Rome were to be alarmed as little as 
possible ; the Senate and Pompey were to be left to 



1 1 8 Cczsar and Catiline, [63 B.C. 

counteract each other by their mutual jealousies, and 
the Roman Knights were to be kept quiet by being 
allowed to see Crassus, the greatest of all the 
moneyed men, at the head of the movement. 
Viewed as a plan of revolution, the defect in this 
scheme lay not in the general lines on which it was 
framed, but in the great difficulty of getting it 
launched. Catiline's plan on the other hand pre- 
sented a fatal facility in its initial stage, but it led up 
necessarily to a result the very contrary of that 
which Caesar hoped to accomplish. Its first effect 
was to produce a cordial union between the Senate 
and the equestrian order. Now one of two 
things must happen : either these two united would 
be strong enough to deal with Catiline — this of 
course was the actual result, — or else the senatorial 
government would collapse and Catiline would be 
able to carry out his full programme and establish in 
Rome a revolutionary government of the same 
bloody type as that of Marius and Cinna. The con- 
spirators forgot that in one essential point their 
situation differed from that of which Cinna had 
taken advantage. The revolutionary movement of 
87 B.C. had been possible because Sulla and his 
army were engaged with Mithridates. It took Sulla 
three years to dispose of his great enemy, and until 
this was done, happen what might in Italy, he could 
not stir.* A three years' respite was thus allowed to 
the new government, and it was only by its own folly 
that it did not use the time in building up a military 



* See above, pp. 14 and 28. 



63 B.C.] Ccesar and Catiline. 119 

and political power against which Sulla would have 
found it hard to contend. But what chance was 
there of a similar respite for Catiline ? Mithridates 
was already driven from Asia and Pompey was ready 
to set sail immediately. A massacre in Rome would 
have brought the Nobles thronging to his camp ; he 
would have returned with his veteran army; his 
name would have rallied all Italy to his standard, 
and the hasty levies of the insurgents, led by men 
not one of whom had ever commanded an army in 
the field, would have been swept like chaff before 
him.* The difference between Caesar and Catiline 
reminds one of the choice placed before the peasant 
of the Scottish legend, who found himself in the 
presence of a magic sword and horn, and whose fate 
was to depend on whether he first drew the sword 
or first blew the horn. Caesar avoided the challenge 
to Pompey until he had provided himself with a 
weapon. The fate of Catiline, even had his first 
effort succeeded, would have been that of the peas- 
ant in the tale, who was torn in pieces by the spirits 
whom his blast evoked — 

" Woe to the fool that ever he was born, 

That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn. " 

It is obvious that Crassus, however willing he may 
have been to use Catiline as a tool in his designs 
against his rival Pompey, can have had no sympathy 
with his schemes of national bankruptcy, and we 

* Their plan for holding Pompey in check was in keeping with the 
folly of the whole movement ; they dreamed of pouncing on Pompey's 
children and having them for hostages. — See Plutarch, Cu. t 18, I. 



120 Catilinarian Conspiracy. [63 B.C. 

may be sure that Caesar was no less averse to a move- 
ment which would have united the Senate and 
Pompey, the constitutional and the military power, 
once for all firmly together, and would have post- 
poned indefinitely the chances of revolution. Both 
Crassus and Caesar got wind of the plot which was 
formed inside the ranks of their party. They did their 
best at first to gain for Catiline an official position 
which would have enabled him to dispense with actual 
armed rebellion ; when this failed and it was mani- 
fest that the conspirators would proceed with their 
further designs, Caesar* and Crassus both warned 
Cicero of the danger and gave him such information 
as they possessed about the plot. The subsequent 
utterances of both may be cited in evidence of the 
reality of the conspiracy and the imminence of the 
danger. When Caesar fourteen years later wrote of the 
" ultimum Senatus Consultant " that the State had 
never had recourse to it saving when " the city was 
almost in flames and the audacity of malefactors was 
striking terror into the hearts of all men," f he must 
have been understood by all Rome to refer to Cati- 
line. Crassus is still more explicit. A year after 
Catiline's death he declared in the Senate : $ " I owe 
it to Cicero that I am a senator, that I am a citizen } 
that I am a free man, that I draw the breath of life ; 
whensoever I look on my wife, on my home, or on 
my country, I behold a blessing for which I am 
indebted to him." 



*Suet., Jul., 17. For Crassus see below, p. 123. 
f Caesar, Bell. Civ., 1, 5. 
%Ad Att., i., 14, 3. 



63 B.C.] 



Cicero and Catiline. 121 



The election of consuls for the next year, which 
probably took place in July, gave the first oppor- 
tunity for violence. Catiline was once more a can- 
didate. Manlius, a veteran centurion of Sulla's 
army and a confederate of Catiline, came to Rome 
with a gang of his associates to organise a riot at the 
polls, in the course of which the consul was to be 
assassinated.* In view of this danger Cicero ob- 
tained a decree temporarily postponing the elections, 
and next day (the day for which the polling was 
originally fixed) he publicly questioned Catiline in 
the Senate f with regard to seditious and inflamma- 
tory words which he was reported to have addressed 
to his partisans. Catiline showed a bold front : he 
replied " that there were two bodies in the State, the 
one weak with a feeble head, the other strong without 
a head ; to this he would take good care that a head 
should be supplied." Cicero thought that the chal- 
lenge should be taken up at once, but he could not 
on this occasion carry the Senate with him. The 
resolutions passed were mild and colourless, and Cat- 
iline strode forth from the Senate-house triumphant. 

Cicero's own precautions proved, however, to be 
sufficient. When the day of election arrived, he 
appeared as returning officer on the Campus Mar- 
tius, guarded by a strong body of friends, and the 
gleam of a corselet which could be seen between the 
folds of the consul's civic gown proclaimed his 
danger to the world. The popular feeling was 
deeply stirred ; Catiline saw that an attack on that 



* Plutarch, Cu. y 14, 2. 
f Pro Mur % , 25, 51. 



122 Cicero and Catiline. 



[63 B.C. 



day would be hopeless, and kept quiet. The voters 
gave their voices against him, and Silanus and Mu- 
rena were elected consuls. Manlius returned to 
Etruria; the last hopes of the confederates for a 
triumph by means of simple riot or assassination 
were over, and they fell back on their reserved pro- 
ject of military insurrection. During the next months 
their forces were silently enlisted in Upper Italy ; by 
the month of October they were ready for action. 

On the 2 1st of October* Cicero announced in the 
Senate that open rebellion was imminent, and that 
the 27th was fixed as the day for the rising. Next 
day (the 22d) the statement of the consul was taken 
into consideration, and the Senate resolved to pro- 
claim that a state of civil war had begun, f thus 
recognising in the consul the power to use extreme 
measures of resistance, which were permissible only 
when the commonwealth was in danger. This 
" Extreme Decree," as it was termed, was expressed 
in the words, "Let the consuls see to it that the 
State takes no harm." Under this modest form the 
magistrate was commissioned to exercise, though 
always on his own responsibility, whatever force he 
might deem necessary for the salvation of the Re- 
public. While Cicero guarded Rome, the consul 
Antonius and the praetor Metellus Celer were 
directed to take the field against the insurgents. 
Manlius appeared in arms, just as Cicero had an- 
nounced on the 27th of October at Fsesulae in 



* Cicero, Cat. i., 3, 7. 

f The precise date (October 22d) of the Ultimum Senatus Consul- 
turn is fixed by the note of Asconius in Cicero's In Pisonem. 




Z> ^ 

co a 



o 

CO 



< 



63 B.C.] Armed Insurrection. 123 

Etruria. Catiline had planned a massacre of the 
nobles in Rome on the next day * (the 28th), and 
had intended to seize the stronghold of Praeneste f 
three days later on the 1st of November. Cicero 
announced both projects to the Senate beforehand, 
and completely frustrated the attempts. So far he 
had checked the enemy at every point, but he had not 
succeeded, as yet, in forcing him to disclose himself. 
Though the forces of his confederates were actually 
in the field and Catiline had arranged shortly to put 
himself at their head, he thought proper to occupy 
the intervening days with a clumsy display of inno- 
cence, offering himself to the custody of one magis- 
trate after another, and finally taking up his quarters 
with Marcus Metellus, whom he begged to keep 
watch over his movements. % Cicero tells us § that 
down to the time when Catiline actually joined the 
rebels in Etruria — " there are men in this House, 
who either do not see what is hanging over us, or 
seeing it pretend not to see, who have nourished the 
hopes of Catiline by the mildness of their proposals, 
and have given strength to the new-born conspiracy 
by refusing to believe in it ; and there are many out- 
side, not only of the bad but of the simple, who have 
followed their lead, and who, if I had taken extreme 



* Cicero, Cat. i., 3, 7. This is perhaps the occasion on which, as 
Plutarch (Cic, 15, 1) asserts, Crassus brought to Cicero a number of 
letters which had been left at his house, warning him and other sen- 
ators to keep out of the way. The story closely resembles that of 
the letter to Lord Monteagle about the Gunpowder Plot. 

f Cicero, Cat. i., 3, 8. 

% Cicero, Cat., i., 8, 19. 

§ Cicero, Cat, i., 12, 30. 



! %4 Cicero and Catiline. £63 g.e. 

measures against Catiline, would have called my ac- 
tion cruel and tyrannical/' Something like a drama- 
tic exposure of the childish pretences of Catiline was 
desired by the consul, and for this his adversary soon 
gave him an occasion. 

On the evening of the 6th of November a meeting 
of the conspirators was held at which it was agreed 
that Catiline should forthwith set out from Rome 
and take command of the troops raised by Manlius, 
leaving the other chiefs of the conspiracy to continue 
their operations in the city. He would fain have 
Cicero disposed of before his departure, and two of 
his associates, Cornelius and Vargunteius, promised 
to procure him this satisfaction. They were on suf- 
ficiently friendly terms with the consul to be able to 
make their way into his house as morning callers, 
and they arranged to take advantage of this oppor- 
tunity to murder him the first thing next day. 
Cicero, however, was well served by his spies. Next 
morning the murderers found the door barred against 
them, and a number of the principal senators as- 
sembled to witness the discomfiture of the men 
whose presence verified what Cicero had announced 
beforehand as to their names and their purpose. 
Next night the conspirators met again and decided 
that, notwithstanding the failure of the assassination, 
Catiline's departure could no longer be delayed. 

On the following morning (Nov. 8th) Cicero sum- 
moned the Senate to the temple of Jupiter Stator 
on the Palatine. Catiline himself, who was resolved 
not to throw off the mask until the very last mo- 
ment, had the audacity to be present. This was 



63 B.C.] First Catilinarian Oration. 125 

Cicero's opportunity. He knew that Catiline was 
about to join the insurgents, and he wished to em- 
phasise this his first act of overt rebellion. He 
wished likewise to have the correctness of his own 
information publicly attested, and to avoid the sup- 
position that Catiline's hypocritical protestations 
had duped the consul, and that his escape from 
Rome was a success scored against the government. 
He therefore turned upon him in the tremendous in- 
vective which has been preserved to us under the 
title of the First Catilinarian Oration. The opening 
words— " Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, pa- 
tientia nostra ? "—are perhaps more universally 
known than any other sentence from an ancient 
author, and the whole speech well merits its fame as 
a masterpiece of passionate and defiant eloquence. 
Throughout, Cicero assumes the tone of one who has 
complete command of the situation. He mocks at 
Catiline's affectation of innocence, he reveals all his 
actions and projects before his face, charges him with 
all that had occurred at the secret meetings of the 
conspirators during the last two nights, and explains 
to him where his comrades are to meet him on the 
road, how the silver eagle which is to serve as their 
standard has gone on before, and how Manlius awaits 
his arrival. As consul, Cicero has ample evidence 
and ample precedent for ordering him to execution on 
the spot, but it does not suit his convenience to do 
so. " I will have you put to death, Catiline/' he 
says,* " but it shall be later on, when it will be impos- 



* Cicero, Cat. % i M 2, 5. 



1 26 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

sible to find anyone so vile, anyone so abandoned, 
anyone so like yourself, as to deny that I am justified 
in the act. So long as there is anyone left to plead 
for you, you shall live ; and you shall live, as you 
live now, hemmed in by my guards— many and 
trusty they are — so that you cannot stir a finger 
against the State : the eyes and ears of many, 
when you least suspect it, shall in the future as in 
the past spy out your ways and keep watch on your 
actions." 

If Catiline wishes to keep up the farce for a few 
hours longer and to represent himself as an innocent 
man driven friendless into exile by the threats of the 
consul, Cicero will humour him so far. " Go," he 
says,* " I order you ; go into banishment, if that is 
what you want me to say. And if," he continues,! 
" you wish to blast the name of me, whom you are 
pleased to call your enemy, withdraw in very truth 
into some distant land. I shall scarcely be able to 
survive the ill-fame which will attach to me, if you 
allow yourself to be driven from the country by the 
command of the consul. But if you wish to be the 
instrument of my praise and my reputation, then set 
forth with all your crew of reprobates, betake your- 
self to Manlius, summon all criminals to your stand- 
ard, sever yourself from every honest man, declare 
war against your country, glory in the act of impiety, 
that it may be clear that you have not been thrust 
forth among strangers, but that you have sought the 
company of your fellows. You will go at last," he 

* Cicero, CaU s i., 8, 20. 
\ Cicero, Cat, i., 9, 23. 



63 B.C.] Catilinarian Orations. 127 

adds,* "well I know it, to that camp whither your 
unbridled and insane desires have long been sum- 
moning you. It is no painful task that I impose 
upon you but an inexpressible pleasure. For this 
mad adventure it is, that nature has fashioned you, 
that choice has trained you, that fortune has spared 
you. You never loved peace, nor even war unless it 
were war as a pirate. You have found for yourself 
a gang of ruffians, recruited from among broken men, 
whom not only all luck but all hope has deserted. 
In the midst of such a crew how you will take your 
joy, how you will triumph in delight, how you will 
revel in satisfaction, when in the whole circle of your 
associates you never hear the voice of one honest 
man, nor see one honest man's face." 

That night Catiline left the city for Etruria. Next 
day (Nov. 9th) Cicero addressed a speech (the Second 
Caiilinarian Oration) to the Roman People, in which 
he announced the departure of Catiline, and laid 
before them the whole situation. He exults in the 
thought that he is now permitted to fight with the 
traitor in the daylight. " For this one leader of this 
intestine war, I have beaten him beyond a doubt. 
No longer will his dagger play against my breast. I 
have done with the perils which I have had to face 
on the Campus and in the Forum and in the Senate- 
house and even within the walls of my own home. 
He has lost his vantage ground now that he is 
driven from the city. We shall wage a fair war 
with none to hinder us against a declared enemy. 
Unquestionably we have ruined the man and tri- 

* Cicero, Cat., i. f 10, 35. 



128 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

umphed over him, now that we have drawn him 
from his secret ambush into open piracy."* 

Cicero answers to the people, as he had already 
done to the Senate, the criticisms which he fears 
will be made on his policy in allowing the rebel cap- 
tain to put himself at the head of his forces. He 
protests that though he would have been justified in 
killing him, yet that his execution would have been 
useless to the commonwealth. Catiline's associates 
would have declared his innocence, would have made 
a martyr of him, and would have used the outcry 
against the consul in order to carry out Catiline's 
schemes more effectively. Now that he has set 
himself in arms against the State, no one can any 
longer pretend to disbelieve in his conspiracy, and 
so not only he but his accomplices whom he leaves 
behind can be safely dealt with. To these last 
Cicero addresses significant words of warning. 
" They are conscious," he says,f " that all the reso- 
lutions of their council of the night before last have 
been reported to me. I exposed them all yesterday 
in the Senate. Catiline took fright and departed. 
What are they waiting for? Nay, but they are 
much mistaken if they think that my lenity is going 
to last for ever. . . . One boon I will still grant 
them ; let them go forth, let them start on their 
journey, let them not suffer their Catiline to pine 
with grief for want of them. I will show them the 
road : he has gone along the Aurelian Way ; if they 
will but make haste, they may catch him up towards 

* Cicero, Cat,, ii., I, I. 
\ Cicero, Cat., ii., 5, 11. 



63 B.C.] Second Catilinarian Oration. 129 

evening. . . . One word more ; either go they 
shall, or keep quiet ; or else if they remain in the 
city and do not mend their ways let them look to 
receive their deserts." Further on * he returns to 
the same theme — " If my mildness heretofore has 
seemed to anyone to argue want of vigour, I would 
reply that it has been waiting till this which lay con- 
cealed should spring to light. For the future I can 
no longer forget that this is my native land, that I 
am the consul of all these Romans, that it is with 
them that I have to live or for them that I have to 
die. There is no guard set upon the gates, no am- 
bush upon the road. If anyone wishes to go forth, 
he can use his own discretion. But if anyone dares 
to stir a finger in the city, if I take him, I will not 
say in any accomplished act, but in any attempt or 
effort against the nation, then I say that I will make 
him feel that in this city there are consuls who will 
not sleep, there are magistrates who will do their 
duty, there is a Senate which will stand firm, there 
are forces in arms, there is a prison which our ances- 
tors established to be the scene of vengeance for 
heinous and red-handed crime." 

With this warning Cicero left things to run their 
course in the city. Outside, the armies of Metellus 
Celer in the valley of the Po and of Antonius in 
Etruria were hurriedly reinforced by fresh levies. 
Meanwhile Catiline had fulfilled Cicero's predictions 
by joining the band of Manlius at Faesulae. Disguise 
was no longer possible, and he assumed the dress 
and title of consul in open rebellion against the 

* Cicero, Cat., ii., 12, 27. 
9 



1 30 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

State. The Senate replied by declaring Catiline 
and Manlius enemies, and summoning those who 
had followed them to disperse. Rewards had al- 
ready been offered for the denunciation of their 
confederates within the city. Sallust tells us * that 
these decrees produced no effect. None of the con- 
spirators in the capital came forward to give evi- 
dence, and none of those in the field deserted their 
standard. Catiline's force now amounted to ten 
thousand men. He felt himself strong enough to 
refuse the aid of the runaway slaves who would 
gladly have flocked to him. He feared that their 
presence might alarm those who looked with indif- 
ference or with favour on his movement, and so 
spoil his chance of support from the populace of the 
capital. 

While the forces were thus mustering on either 
side, Cicero was annoyed by a foolish and ill-timed 
contest among his own followers. At the recent 
consular election Silanus and Murena had headed 
the poll with Servius Sulpicius Rufus for third and 
Catiline for fourth. A law had been lately passed 
increasing the penalties against bribery, and Cato, 
the sworn foe of electoral corruption, whose charac- 
teristic it was to be instant in season and out of sea- 
son, must needs choose this moment, when all the 
fortunes of the commonwealth were at stake, to 
divide the friends of the constitution by trying to 
unseat Murena on a charge of bribery and treating. 

Cicero protested against the folly of throwing the 
city again into the confusion of a contested election ; 

* Sallust, Cat., 36, 5. 



63 B.C.] Speech for Murena. 131 

he offered himself as counsel for Murena, and deliv- 
ered on his behalf. a speech* which is a very model 
of playful and persuasive eloquence, the more pleas- 
ant because it comes as an interlude in the grim 
tragedy of the Catilinarian orations. The serious 
arguments of the consul as to the political necessities 
of the time are relieved by a sportive attack on the 
technical subtleties which form the stock in trade of 
the lawyer Sulpicius, and on the precisian doctrines 
which Cato has imbibed from his Stoic tutors. " I 
must tell you, gentlemen, that those eminent quali- 
ties which we observe in Marcus Cato are all his 
own ; what we sometimes find wanting in him is to 
be set down not to his nature but to his master, 
Zeno, whose doctrines have been caught up from 
learned tutors by our most talented friend, and that 
not as a topic for discussion, which is the usual way, 
but as a rule of life/* Cicero laughed the jurors into 
a good humour by a ludicrous application of Stoic 
maxims to the practical exigencies of Roman politics, 
and they unanimously acquitted Murena. The addi- 
tional peril which Cato's obstinate purism would have 
created was thus happily averted. It is difficult to 
realise that this witty and sparkling speech was ut- 
tered by a man in hourly danger of his life, and with 
all the responsibilities of a tremendous political crisis 
weighing upon him. " What a merry man we have 
for consul/' was Cato's remark, as he listened from 
the accusers' bench. It never seems to have occurred 
to Cato, that Cicero's merriment was pressed into the 

* Some extracts from the Pro Murena will be found above, pp 
94-98. 



132 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

service of the State, and that his own austerity was 
helping on the projects of the very men whose exe- 
cution he was himself to urge a few days later. 

The trial of Murena took place in the month of 
November. Meanwhile the conspirators in the city 
anxiously awaited the appearance of Catiline and 
his army. Their chief was Publius Cornelius Lentu- 
lus Sura, who had been consul in 71 B.C., and had been 
afterwards expelled from the Senate by the censors. 
He had recovered his seat by being again elected to 
the praetorship, and was now serving that office. He 
appears to have been a man of flighty and credulous 
temperament. He lent his ears to designing sooth- 
sayers who persuaded him that a Sibylline oracle 
had foretold the domination in Rome of three Cor- 
nelii. Part of the prophecy, they said, had been al- 
ready fulfilled by Cinna and Sulla, and Lentulus was 
marked by fate to be the third. Other senators and 
knights of good family, Autronius, Gabinius, Stati- 
lius, Cassius, and Cethegus were associated with him. 
Cethegus was supposed to be the most energetic of 
the conspirators and always urged immediate and 
violent measures. Cicero had failed as yet to get 
evidence of any overt act which would justify the 
arrest of these men, but at length their own folly 
gave him the desired opportunity. 

There were present in Rome at this time some 
envoys from the Allobroges of Transalpine Gaul. 
The Allobroges were overwhelmed with a burden of 
debt to Roman money-lenders and were ready for 
any desperate action. In the meantime they had 
sent an embassy to Rome to beg some relief from 



63 B.C.] The Allobroges. 133 

the government. These Gallic envoys were intro- 
duced to Gabinius by a certain freedman named 
Umbrenus, and Gabinius and the rest conceived the 
wild idea of associating the Allobroges in the con- 
spiracy and inducing them to supply Catiline with 
cavalry for the invasion of Italy. The Gauls at first 
listened with sympathy ; but on further considera- 
tion they reflected that they might gain more by 
betraying their tempters to the government than by 
engaging seriously in so desperate a cause. They 
accordingly took counsel with Fabius Sanga, the pa- 
tron of their tribe, who at once gave notice to Cicero. 
The Allobroges were instructed to continue their 
negotiations with the conspirators and to obtain from 
them if possible written documents. With incredi- 
ble stupidity Lentulus and his associates fell into the 
trap. They gave the Gauls letters in their own hand- 
writing, addressed to the senate and people of the 
Allobroges, undertaking to perform what they had 
promised verbally to the envoys, and urging the 
Allobroges in turn to send the assistance which their 
envoys had promised. The Gauls were to visit Cati- 
line on their way north, and they bore with them a 
letter from Lentulus to Catiline in which he advised 
him to admit the slaves into the ranks of his band. 

By the evening of the 2d of December all was 
settled, and the Allobroges started on their home- 
ward journey that night. They were accompanied 
by Volturcius, one of the confederates, and attended 
by a considerable escort. Cicero was duly informed 
of all this, and made his preparations accordingly.* 

*Cicero> Cat. t iii., 2, 5. 



134 Cicero and Catiline. [63 b.c. 

The great northern road from Rome crosses the 
Tiber at the Mulvian Bridge some two miles above 
the city. Cicero set two of the praetors in ambush 
with armed bands in farm-houses on each side of the 
water. These waited until the Allobroges and their 
companions were crossing in the darkness ; then ad- 
vancing simultaneously they occupied the two ends 
of the bridge. Thus not only were the letters seized, 
but the whole party was caught on the bridge. They 
were conveyed to Rome and deposited at the con- 
sul's house about daybreak (Dec. 3d). Cicero forth- 
with summoned to his presence Gabinius, Cethegus, 
Statilius, and Lentulus. Messages were likewise 
sent to some of the principal senators, who hurried 
to the consul's house. Contrary to the advice of 
these, Cicero declined to open the letters. He pre- 
ferred at once to convoke the Senate, so that the 
evidence might come out in open court. In the 
meantime, acting on a hint from the Allobroges, he 
sent one of the praetors to search the house of Cethe- 
gus, where a store of swords and daggers was soon 
found. These were immediately seized. 

As soon as the Senate had assembled, Cicero took 
Lentulus by the hand and led him into the House. 
This show of gentle force exercised by the consul in 
person was considered due to the dignity of the 
praetor; the other conspirators, being but private 
men, were arrested with less ceremony. Volturcius 
was first admitted to give evidence under promise of 
pardon, and detailed the instructions with which he 
was charged for Catiline, who was to be urged to ad- 
vance as soon as possible on Rome, so as to be before 



63 B.C.] Evidence against Conspirators. 135 

the city during the festival of the Saturnalia ; this 
would be the most convenient opportunity for his 
accomplices to co-operate with fire and sword within 
the city. Next came the Allobroges with their evi- 
dence as to the messages and letters with which they 
had been entrusted, and as to the promises which 
Lentulus had made them on the strength of his 
Sibylline oracle (see above, p. 132). When con- 
fronted on this point, Lentulus' assurance forsook 
him, and he did not venture to deny the charge. 
But the most overwhelming evidence was that of the 
letters themselves which lay still unopened on the 
table. The accused were called upon, one by one, 
and each acknowledged his own hand and seal before 
the thread was cut and the correspondence inciting 
to a Gallic invasion of Italy was read to the House.* 
After this there could be no question as to the guilt 
of the prisoners ; and to close the mouths of all ob- 
jectors for the future Cicero directed that the evi- 
dence should be taken down word for word by certain 
trustworthy senators, and then immediately copied 
out and published. The fidelity of the document 
was thus guaranteed by its being at once subjected 
to the criticism of those who had heard the evidence, 
and it was impossible to maintain with any plausi- 
bility that the record had been tampered with after- 
wards.f The Senate next \ resolved by an unanimous 
vote that Lentulus should be required to resign his 
magistracy, and that he should then be remanded 

* Cicero, Cat., iii., 5, 10. 

\Pro Sulla, 14, 41. 

X Cicero, Cat. t iii., 6, 14. 



136 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

with the rest to safe-keeping. Cethegus, Statilius, 
and Gabinius were already secured, and orders for 
arrest were issued against five other ring-leaders, of 
whom however one only, Cceparius, was actually 
caught. The prisoners were guarded in the houses 
of magistrates and senators, two of them being com- 
mitted to the charge of Caesar and Crassus. By this 
choice of guardians the consul meant to indicate that 
he put no trust in the rumour which made Caesar and 
Crassus accessories to the conspiracy, but regarded 
them as loyal and trustworthy citizens. After thus 
providing for the custody of the prisoners, the Sen- 
ate with equal unanimity passed a vote of thanks to 
Cicero because " by his courage, wisdom, and fore- 
thought the commonwealth had been delivered from 
the greatest dangers." At the same time a solemn 
Thanksgiving was voted to the gods for having 
blessed the efforts of the consul " to rescue the city 
from conflagration, the citizens from massacre, and 
Italy from war." Thanksgivings had often been 
decreed for the success of commanders in the field, 
but Cicero was the first to whom it had ever befallen 
to receive such a recognition of his services in the 
city. 

Late in the afternoon of the same day (Dec. 3d) 
Cicero assembled the people and recounted to them 
the events of the last twenty-four hours. This 
speech, the Third Catilinarian Oration, is our main 
authority for the incidents which have been already 
detailed. The statements are fully confirmed not 
only by Plutarch but by Sallust, whose master, 
Caesar, voted on this day in agreement with the rest 



63 B.C.] Third Catilinar tan Oration. 137 

of the Senate ; we are justified in concluding from 
this unanimity that the facts were absolutely plain 
and notorious and that there were not two opinions 
as to the guilt of the accused. Thus Cicero's first 
object was fully attained ; the conspirators in the 
city, whose machinations had hitherto been hidden 
from the public, were now caught in a flagrant act of 
rebellion, and an act which had conspicuously failed. 
In presence of their egregious folly Cicero may well 
have exulted that Catiline was no longer at hand to be 
their guide, and it is not surprising that he should 
have been tempted to magnify the sagacity of the 
leader whom they had lost in comparison with the in- 
eptitude of those who remained behind. " Catiline/' 
he exclaims, " would never have fixed for our informa- 
tion the season of the Saturnalia, or announced so 
long beforehand the day of doom and destruction 
for the commonwealth ; he would never have been 
so simple as to allow me to lay hands on his own 
seal, his own letters, or the eye-witnesses of his 
guilt." "When I drove him from the city, Ro- 
mans, I had this in my mind that, Catiline once 
away, I had no reason to fear the sleepy Lentulus or 
the bloated Cassius or the raving maniac Cethegus." * 
The conflict was not yet over, but a first great suc- 
cess had been scored, and Cicero was fully justified 
in addressing his fellow-citizens in a tone of triumph 
and confidence ; f " Night is now upon us ; so do 
you, Romans, offer your thanks to that Jupiter who 
watches over the city and over you, and then return 

* Cicero, Cat., iii., 7, 16. 
f Cicero, Cat., iii., 12, 29. 



138 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

to your homes. Though the danger has been 
averted, yet I would have each one of you keep 
watch and ward over his own house this night as 
you did last night. That you shall not be called 
upon to do so much longer and that you shall enjoy 
quiet from this time forward, that shall be my care, 
Romans." 

The multitude greeted his words with acclamation, 
and escorted him back in honour to the house of a 
friend with whom he was to lodge for the night. 
The consul could not sleep that night in his own 
home, for it was in the possession of the Vestal Vir- 
gins, who each year celebrated in the house of one 
of the magistrates certain rites of the " Good God- 
dess" from which all males were rigorously ex- 
cluded. 

After the interval of one day (Dec. 4th), during 
which it appears that further evidence was being 
taken and rewards voted to the informers,* the 
Senate assembled for the third time on the 5th, the 
famous Nones of December, and the consul asked 
its advice on the question what was to be done with 
Lentulus and his fellows. The place of meeting was 
the temple of Concord at the foot of the Capitoline 
Hill. The Forum f was filled with citizens who had 
armed themselves at the consul's bidding, and the 
slopes of the Capitol were occupied by bodies of 
Roman Knights, amongst whom Cicero's friend At- 
ticus was conspicuous.^: 



* Cicero, Cat., iv., 5, 10. 
f Cicero, Cat., iv., 7, 14. 
\AdAtt., ii., 1, 7. 




FRIEZE OF THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD. 
(Duruy.) 



63 B.C.] Debate in the Senate. 139 

The accounts which have been preserved to us of 
this great debate are strangely conflicting. Plu- 
tarch * relates " that the only one of Cato's speeches 
surviving in his time was that delivered on this 
occasion ; for Cicero the consul had trained certain 
writers of special intelligence to use signs which ex- 
pressed the sense of many letters in a few short 
marks, and had set them here and there in the 
Senate-house. For the keeping and employment of 
what are called shorthand writers had not yet begun, 
but it is said that this occasion was the first when 
men struck on the track of any such invention. " It 
might have been hoped that this precaution would 
have secured us an authentic account of the speeches 
and motions before the House. Nevertheless we 
find perplexing discrepancies. Sallust omits Cicero's 
speech altogether, and Plutarch and Dio Cassiusf 
give accounts of it which are in contradiction of each 
other, and neither of which agrees very well with the 
published version. Brutus, who in later years wrote 
a life of his uncle Cato, went hopelessly astray, be- 
lieving that Cato was the first to propose the punish- 
ment of death. Luckily for us, this blunder caused 
Cicero to give us in a confidential letter £ of criticism, 
addressed to Atticus, a plain statement of some of 
the facts, which is our best guide through the laby- 
rinth of contradiction. Lastly as to the nature of 
Caesar's proposal, we have two distinct versions ; the 
one, easy in itself but irreconcilable with what we 

* Plutarch, Cato Minor, 23, 3. 

f Plutarch, Cic. y 21, 2. Dio Cassius, xxxvii., 35, 4. 

%Ad Att., xii., 21. 



140 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

know of the order of debate, is propounded by Ap- 
pian* and Plutarch; the other, vouched for by 
Cicero in his published speech and by Sallust, fits in 
with the other facts as they are known to us but 
presents serious internal difficulties. This is not 
the place for a full discussion of these vexed ques- 
tions : I will only say that I believe that the con- 
temporary authorities, Cicero and Sallust, have 
preserved the true account of the order of debate 
and of Caesar's proposal, and that 1 shall follow 
them rather than Appian and Plutarch in the subse- 
quent narrative. 

Cicero first put the question to Silanus, the consul 
elect, who thereupon moved that the five prisoners 
should be put to death. He was followed by the 
other senators of consular rank, who all supported 
the motion. The praetorian benches were next to be 
consulted. Among the first in this rank came Caesar, 
who was praetor-elect and would enter on office at 
the end of the month. Caesar, if we may trust Sal- 
lust's version f of his speech, while fully agreeing as 
to the guilt of the accused and acknowledging that 
no punishment could be too severe for their crimes, 
urged that the Senate should nevertheless consider 
not the deserts of the prisoners but its own charac- 
ter as the guardian of the laws and the constitution. 
He pointed out with much force that it is just by 
cases like this that bad precedents are set up and the 
habit of obedience to the law broken through; it 
was thus that the Thirty at Athens had begun thei* 

* Appian, Bell. Civ., ii., 5 and 6 ; see below pp. 141 and 148. 
f Sallust, Cat. y 51. 



53 B.C.] Ccesars Proposal. 141 

tyranny by putting to death without trial men of 
notoriously criminal character. To let the prisoners 
go would be manifestly impolitic, but without break- 
ing the law which forbade that any Roman citizen 
should be punished with death except by command 
of the People, measures might be taken which would 
render the conspirators powerless to do harm for the 
future. He therefore proposed that the property of 
the culprits should be confiscated, and that they 
should be confined in chains in corporate towns of 
Italy, and that it should be declared illegal for any- 
one to bring before the Senate or the People any 
proposal for their release. 

It is obviously very difficult to understand how 
such a proposal could follow on such an argument. 
Caesar by proposing an alternative sentence seems to 
acknowledge the right of the Senate to try these 
men and to condemn them to punishment of some 
sort. Why was the Senate better qualified to pro- 
nounce a sentence of imprisonment for life, than a 
sentence of death ? This question, though it seems 
to force itself on the notice of the reader, is never 
clearly stated, much less solved, by any of our au- 
thorities. Appian evades it by making Caesar pro- 
pose a mere remand of the prisoners for a legal trial 
later on. Sallust and Cicero give us little help in 
explanation, though they state the facts correctly. 
The most probable answer seems to be that impris- 
onment in the days of the Roman Republic was not 
fully recognised as a species of punishment, but only 
as a harsh method of safe-keeping. For this reason it 
was not mentioned amongst the punishments against 



142 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

which a right of appeal was guaranteed to Roman 
citizens. All the laws which treat of the right of 
appeal speak of death, of scourging and of fine, as 
the penalties which are appealed against. The 
Senate then, or rather the consul acting under the 
advice of the Senate, is justified (so we must suppose 
Caesar to maintain) in punishing dangerous enemies 
of the State so long as the punishment inflicted is 
not one forbidden totidem verbis by the statute. 
Thus Caesar's motion may be* held to " keep on the 
windy side of the law," though it seems a strange 
subtlety to say that a court, not qualified to pro- 
nounce any " capital " sentence (which in this age 
commonly meant a sentence of death to be avoided 
by voluntary exile and self-deprivation of citizen- 
ship), should nevertheless have the right to inflict a 
punishment infinitely more severe. 

Whatever the reasonableness of Caesar's proposal, 
his speech produced a strong effect, and many of the 
senators of praetorian rank signified their assent. 
Silanus the consul-elect took alarm, and explained 

* I assume that the " penal servitude " of later Roman law (by which 
a man undoubtedly lost his " caput ")had not yet been invented, and 
that the t4 citizenship" and " liberty" of the prisoners would be 
technically intact, just as they were in the case of the insolvent 
debtor who was handed over to work in chains for his creditor (see 
Ortolan's Institutes of Justinian, iii., § 2027, n.). In this case the 
sentence would not be technically a " capital " one but might be re- 
garded as detention indefinitely prolonged. Mommsen (Staats-Recht, 
iii., p. 1250, n. 1) holds on the contrary that perpetual imprisonment 
is really a death-sentence indefinitely suspended by way of grace. 
If however this is what Caesar proposed, how could he with any 
plausibility afterwards declare his opinion (see below, p. 230), that 
the death-sentence had been illegal ? 



63 B.C.] Fourth Catzltnartan Oration. 143 

away his own motion by an unworthy quibble. It 
was worded in the terms " that the extreme penalty 
be inflicted on the prisoners/' and he now interpreted 
this to mean the same as Caesar's proposal ; " for 
perpetual imprisonment/' he said "is the extreme 
penalty which can be inflicted on a Roman citizen." * 
Many of Cicero's friends approved of Caesar's motion, 
as it would undoubtedly relieve the consul from the 
risk and responsibility which he would incur by the 
actual infliction of death, f His brother Quintus is 
said to have been among those who wavered. % 

At this point Cicero intervened in the debate with 
the speech which he afterwards published as the 
Fourth Catilinarian Oration. As consul, he was not 
like the rest called upon to deliver his opinion in the 
order of his place, but might interpose with a magis- 
terial statement at any moment which he deemed 
expedient. In another respect the consul differs 
from the ordinary senator. He is present to ask and 
receive the advice of the Senate, not to give advice 
himself. He must therefore refrain, much as an 
English judge charging a jury refrains, from express- 
ing his adhesion to one side or the other, though by 
his method of summing up and laying the question 
before the House he may indicate pretty clearly 
what is his own opinion. In this speech Cicero in- 
sists on two points : first he wishes that the Senate 
shall decide according to what it deems good for the 
State without regard to what may be the personal 

* Plutarch, Cato Minor \ 22, 5. 
f Plutarch, Cic, 21, 2. 
% Suetonius, Jul., 14. 



144 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

consequences to himself ; these he is ready and proud 
to accept : secondly he protests against any delay. 
" Now whatever is to be done, whichever way your 
minds and your resolutions incline, you must decide 
before nightfall. You see what a crime has been 
brought before your bar. If you suppose that only 
a few are associated in it, you are much mistaken ; 
this mischief has spread further than we thought ; 
it has not only infected Italy, but it has crossed the 
Alps, and working its way in darkness has already 
laid hold on several provinces. It cannot be crushed 
out by withholding your hand and putting off the 
day of reckoning. Whatever the nature of the 
punishment which you select, you must inflict it 
instantly." * 

He next proceeds to explain to the senators the 
alternatives presented to them — " I see that there 
are two motions before the House, the first that of 
Decimus Silanus, who proposes that those who have 
attempted to destroy this commonwealth shall be 
punished by death, the other that of Caius Caesar 
who, while exempting them from death, provides for 
every other punishment in its most aggravated form. 
Both these senators have pronounced sentences stern 
as their own dignity and the gravity of the crisis de- 
mand. The one thinks that men who have attempted 
to slaughter the Roman people, to destroy our Em- 
pire, to blot out the name of Rome, ought not to be 
allowed to enjoy a moment longer the life and breath 
which we all draw in common ; and he bears in mind 
that this punishment has often been inflicted on 

* Cicero, Cat,, iv., 3, 6. 



63 B.C.] Fourth Catilinarian Oration. 145 

wicked citizens in this commonwealth. The other 
perceives that death has not been established by- 
Heaven as a punishment, but that it is either a debt 
due to nature, or a haven of rest from toils and 
troubles ; and so wise men never meet it with re- 
luctance, and brave men often seek it of their own 
will. But chains, and chains to be worn for ever, 
are truly a device framed for the exemplary punish- 
ment of heinous crimes. He adds a heavy penalty 
on the townships in which they are to be confined, 
if any of the prisoners escapes from his bonds ; he 
commits them to a dreadful prison, and provides as 
the crimes of these wretches deserve, that no one 
shall be allowed to propose to alleviate by decree of 
Senate or People the penalty to which he condemns 
them, thus depriving them even of hope, so often 
the sole consolation of men in trouble : he orders 
further that their property be confiscated. All that 
he leaves to these criminals is life, and if he had 
taken this too, by a single pang he would have re- 
lieved them from all the pangs of mind and body 
and all the expiation of their crime. And for this it 
was that the men of old, in order to set before the 
eyes of the wicked some terror in their lifetime, 
thought it well to teach that pains and penalties not 
unlike this are reserved for the impious in the world 
below ; they understood, it is clear, that if these 
were set aside death in itself was nothing to fear. 
Now, Senators, I see what course is for my own bene- 
fit. If you accept the proposal of Caius Caesar, it is 
probable, since he has professed those politics which 
are supposed to be in favour with the many, that 



146 Fourth Catilinarian Oration. [63 B.C. 

having him for the adviser and the voucher for this 
sentence I shall have less to fear from the attacks of 
the multitude ; if the other proposal be adopted, I do 
not know but that more of trouble may be in store 
for me. But let all considerations of my danger give 
way to the interests of the State. For Caesar, as his 
own dignity and the splendour of his ancestry 
required, has laid this sentence in our hands, as a 
pledge of his enduring loyalty to the State. The 
truth is, that Caius Caesar knows that the Semproni- 
an Law is intended for the benefit of Roman citizens, 
and that the man who is an enemy to the State can- 
not by any possibility be a citizen ; he knows likewise 
that the very man * who carried the Sempronian Law 
paid the penalty of his treason without the command 
of the People. . . . And so a man of his known 
kindliness and clemency does not hesitate to commit 
Publius Lentulus to a life-long dungeon and chains; 
he provides that for the future no man shall be per- 
mitted to gain credit for himself by alleviating the 
punishment of Lentulus, or to pose as the people's 
friend, while bringing calamity on the Roman Peo- 
ple ; he adds that his goods are to be confiscated, so 
that to all the other torments of mind and body want 
and beggary are to be added. Therefore, whether you 
vote with him, you will have given me a coadjutor 
beloved and acceptable to the commons, to help me 
to plead my cause to the multitude ; or whether you 
prefer to follow the advice of Silanus, you will have 
an easy defence both for yourselves and me against 



* /. <f., Caius Gracchus. 



63 B.C.] Catds Speech. 147 

any charge of cruelty, and I will maintain that this 
sentence was far the less severe of the two." 

The next feature in the debate was the speech of 
Cato. He was tribune-elect, and would probably be 
asked for his opinion immediately after the senators 
of praetorian rank. Plutarch * tells us that Cato 
severely rebuked his brother-in-law Silanus for his 
weakness, and fiercely attacked Caesar for trying to 
intimidate the Senate, when he might be thankful if 
he himself escaped condemnation as an accomplice. 
Sallust's version of Cato's speech contains nothing 
about Silanus, and softens down the invective against 
Caesar. But the main argument, as Sallust gives it, 
is so perfectly adapted to the situation, that there can 
be little doubt that it is the one which Cato actually 
used. This argument is that the situation calls for 
administrative action rather than for precise weigh- 
ing of penalties, f The prisoners are avowedly 
guilty, so that no injustice can be done ; but the 
really vital question is what effect will the one or the 
other decision of the House have on the chances of 
Catiline and his army. % 

When the question was brought to this point, a 
sensible man could hardly doubt what answer it was 
his duty to give. Caesar's proposal was obviously 
and notoriously impracticable. What probability 
was there of such a sentence being carried out? 
How could the Senate prevent any magistrate from 
proposing the release of the prisoners ? Cicero had 

* Plutarch, Cato Minor, 23, 1. 
f Sallust, Cat., 52, 3. 
% Sallust, Cat., 52, 17. 



148 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

later on the opportunity of proving in his own person 
the futility of such restrictive clauses. Clodius in 
the law which banished him provided that it should 
be unlawful to propose his recall, but this did not 
prevent its being both proposed and carried. The 
same would doubtless have been the case in this 
instance if Caesar's motion had been adopted. An 
agitation would at once have been set on foot to 
review the sentence. Meanwhile Catiline and his 
companions in arms would have had no sense of dis- 
couragement or terror at the fate of their fellows. 
They would have regarded Lentulus as simply out 
of the game for the moment, until they could come 
and rescue him. His fate would have depended 
mainly on the issue of the military operations in 
the field, whereas, as we shall see presently, his im- 
mediate execution had a momentous effect on the 
decision of that issue. 

Cato's speech determined the sense of the House, 
which Cicero had left doubtful. An effort was in- 
deed made at the last moment to put off the decision, 
in spite of the protest which the consul had uttered 
against delay. Tiberius Claudius Nero moved to 
adjourn the question until further measures of de- 
fence against Catiline should be provided, and Sila- 
nus, tossed to and fro by conflicting anxieties, took 
refuge at last in this neutral proposal and announced 
that he should vote with Nero.'* But by the rules of 



* Sallust, Cat., 50, 4. That Nero's proposal came last of all is 
proved (in contradiction of Appian) by Cicero's statement {Ad Att., 
xii., 21, 1) that " all who spoke before Cato, excepting Caesar, had 
spoken for death." 




CO 

o 

z 

til 

I 



z 
O 
co 



o o 



< 

-1 



I 



63 B.C.] Execution of Conspirators. 149 

the Roman Senate motions for adjournment had no 
precedence over those on the main question, and 
thus it happened that the proposal of Nero was 
never put to the vote. Cicero first submitted to the 
House the proposal of Cato, which was in substance 
the same as that of Silanus, but which was more 
fully and clearly expressed. * This was carried by a 
great majority and all the other motions before the 
House necessarily dropped. 

Cicero lost no time in carrying the sentence into 
execution. He at once dismissed the Senate, and 
proceeding to the Palatine, where Lentulus was con- 
fined, led him along the Sacred Way through the 
Forum to the door of the ancient prison of the 
Kings close to the Temple of Concord where the de- 
bate had been held. Hither he commanded the other 
prisoners to be conveyed, one by one, from their 
several places of detention. The multitude which 
thronged the Forum was as yet uncertain for what 
purpose they were being brought. As each arrived 
he was handed over to the magistrates charged with 
the care of executions, and by them thrust down in- 
to the subterranean vault of the prison, where he was 
immediately strangled. When all five had perished 
the consul turned to the assembled people and, hu- 
mouring the superstition which forbade the ill-omened 
mention of death, announced their fate in the words, 
"They have lived their life. ,, Night was falling 
when Cicero returned homewards amidst the flare 
of torches displayed at every door and the shouts of 



* Ad Att. % xii., 21, I. 



150 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

the multitude who hailed him as their deliverer and 
preserver.* 

The soundness of Cato's advice and the wisdom 
of Cicero's action were soon manifested ; the army of 
Catiline, which had remained unaffected by all the 
previous decrees of the Senate, began, as soon as the 
news of Lentulus' execution arrived, to disperse and 
dwindle until it was reduced to three thousand men. 
These were soon confronted near Pistoria, some 
twenty miles from Fsesulae, -by a superior force 
under Petreius, a brave and experienced officer who 
was acting as lieutenant to the second consul An- 
tonius. The whole of them were cut to pieces fight- 
ing bravely around their leader, whose gallant death 
atoned in some degree for the criminal stupidity of 
his attempt against the commonwealth. Scott has 
recorded for us the plea of the Roman — 

" Who with the gladiators' aid 
For empire enterprised ; 
He stood the cast his rashness played, 
Left not the victims he had made, 
Dug his red grave with his own blade, 
And on the field he lost was laid, 
Abhorred, but not despised." 

The defeat and death of Catiline happened on the 
Nones of January, exactly one month after the exe- 
cution of Lentulus. There can be no question that 
the one event was the direct result of the other. 
Catiline had calculated on having to deal with a 
weak government, divided by party factions and 
hampered by constitutional scruples. He was met 

* Plutarch, Cic, 22, 3. 



63 B.C.] Legality of the Executions. 151 

by a dramatic revelation of the total collapse of the 
schemes of his confederates in the city, and by a 
startling example of the length to which the consul 
and the Senate were prepared to go in dealing with 
them. Down to the Nones of December, it was not 
clear which party had most force on its side. When 
once this question seemed to be decided, Catiline 
lost his chief hopes of support. All the outer circle 
of his followers deserted him, and he was left alone 
with a handful of desperate men for whom there 
was no retreat. 

No State trial, except that perhaps of Charles I., 
has ever been the subject of so much controversy as 
that which consigned Lentulus and his companions 
to the executioner. The clamour against Cicero's 
action began a few days later and never ceased until 
he was driven into banishment by a vote of the 
People. This condemnation was solemnly reversed, 
and the exile restored in triumph eighteen months 
later. But after nineteen centuries the controversy 
still rages, and the question is eagerly debated 
whether Cicero's act was that of a bold and public- 
spirited magistrate, who at a critical moment used 
his legitimate powers with vigour and discretion, or 
whether it was a judicial murder,* perpetrated with- 
out legal warrant by a timid and self-seeking partisan. 

* ' ' A brutal judicial murder " is Mommsen's expression in his 
Roman History. In his more recent work, the Staats-Rechl (vol. iii. , p. 
1246), Mommsen takes a much more moderate view, holding that the 
Senatus consultum ultimum did really and legally justify the consul 
in treating all conspiring citizens as enemies caught on Roman terri- 
tory ; he now seems to blame Cicero only for consulting the Senate, 
instead of putting the prisoners to death on his own responsibility. 



152 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

I will attempt to state very shortly the main points 
at issue. 

The Roman constitution, while restricting the 
capital jurisdiction of the magistrate over citizens, 
allows him to use any amount of force against 
enemies of the State. A citizen may commit acts 
which constitute him an enemy, in which case he by 
his own deed renounces his civic privileges. The 
rule for the magistrate by Roman, as by English,* 
law seems to be that he may not treat any citizen 
as an enemy on the ground of apprehended or 
future mischief nor on the ground of past offences, 
but only in the presence of overt acts implying 
grave and immediate danger to the State, which can 
only be repelled by the use of violent methods of 
self-defence. It follows that the executions must be 
on a scale not out of proportion to the necessity, 
and that they must not be continued after the im- 
minent danger has ceased. If the conduct of the 
magistrate is afterwards called in question, the bur- 
den of proof that the forcible act was really necessary 
lies on him. On the other hand the moment that 
the necessity is present he is neglecting his duty if 
he fails to act on it. In extreme cases the private 
man has the same duty. In the colonies and depen- 
dencies of England the exercise of this terrible 
responsibility has been sometimes preceded by a 
solemn proclamation of " Martial Law." This 
proclamation does not, strictly speaking, make any 
alteration in the rights and duties which each magis* 



* See Dicey, Law of the Constitution^ Lecture vii. 



63 B.C.] Proclamation of Martial Law. 153 

trate and each citizen had before,"* but it calls atten- 
tion to the fact that a state of war exists with all the 
extraordinary obligations which such condition im- 
plies ; it indicates that the magistrate or the officer 
expects to be obliged to act on his extreme powers, 
and that he intends to do so. In Rome a correspond- 
ing proclamation is found in the decree of the Senate 
" that the consuls see to it that the State takes no 
harm/' This decree, on the face of it, does not so 
much confer fresh powers, as call upon the magis- 
trates to stir up the powers which they already 
possess. Nevertheless it is felt to make a grave 
difference in the situation, to bring home to the 
magistrate the responsibility for defending the com- 
monwealth, and to justify acts which otherwise would 
be held tyrannous and outrageous. It authorises 
the consul, as Sallust says, f " to employ every means 
of compulsion on aliens and Romans alike and to 
exercise extreme authority inside and outside the 
city." 

As Cicero himself puts the case, the whole dispute 
resolves itself into the question, was Lentulus a 
citizen or an enemy? About Catiline who was 
openly in arms there could be no doubt ; but Len- 
tulus had not actually struck a blow : was he to be 
classed in the same category? There was no doubt 
on any hand as to the guilt of the accused. They 
were taken red-handed in the act of corresponding 
with the enemies of the State, and their own public 



* Stephen, History of the Criminal Law \ p. 214^ 
fSalkst, Cat, 39, 



154 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

confession constituted a plea of " Guilty/' But how 
were they to be dealt with ? The Law of Caius 
Gracchus said that no Roman citizen was to be con- 
demned to death without the command of the People. 
The democratic exposition of that law was that, 
given a citizen, no amount of treason short of physi- 
cally appearing in arms against the State could con- 
stitute an enemy. The view of the Senate was that 
a man who from inside the walls co-operated with 
insurgents was really and truly an enemy, and a 
more dangerous one because he was posted in 
ambush. The common-sense answer to the ques- 
tion seems to be that suggested by Cato's speech as 
reported by Sallust (above p. 147). If the peril 
from outside had been over, there would have been 
no public need for the execution of these men, and 
under those circumstances their rights as citizens 
would have revived, as they did in fact in the case 
of the four criminals * who were included in the sen- 
tence of the Senate, and who escaped immediate 
seizure ; but while Catiline was still threatening the 
commonwealth with a dangerous army, his confed- 
erates could not justly claim any immunity which 
conflicted with the public safety. The determining 
factor in the decision was the prospect of the effect 
which either course would produce on the operations 
in the field. 



* Sallust, Cat., 50, 4. The fate of these men is not expressly 
mentioned, but we should certainly have heard if they had been put 
to death. They probably were summoned before the prsetor, but 
acknowledged their guilt by retiring into exile (as Verres did) without 
waiting for the verdict of a jury. 



63 B.C.] Legality of the Executions. 155 

On the ground then of public necessity Cicero 
would have been justified in putting the Catilinarians 
to death by his own authority or by the advice of 
any assessors whom he might select to act with 
him. But in view of the fact that no case absolutely 
parallel had occurred since* the Law of Caius Grac- 
chus on which his adversaries mainly relied, he 
thought it better first to take the advice of the great 
public council which the constitution had provided 
for him. This was, strictly speaking, an innovation. 
The Senate had sometimes condemned rebels by 
name as public enemies, thereby directly advising 
the consul to put them to death ; but such rebels had 
always been persons at large and in arms (as Fulvius), 
or supposed to be in arms (as Caius Gracchus), not 
prisoners under present detention. The difference 
however is one of circumstances, not of principle. In 
either case the decree of the Senate could make no 
difference in the legal responsibility of the consul. 
The legal justification of his act was, not that the 
Senate had ordered it, but that it was necessary for 
the preservation of the State. He would have been 
worthy of blame, if in order to carry out this con- 
sultation he had dangerously delayed his action. 
But when the advice of the Senate could be asked 
without practical inconvenience, it was clearly wise 
in the consul to obtain it. It was important for the 
sake of the moral impression to be produced, that the 



* The precedent of the execution of the Bacchanalian conspirators 
In 186 B.C. (see Livy, xxxix., 14, etseq.), as being previous to the Sem- 
pronian Law, probably went for nothing. At any rate Cicero never 
refers to it. 



156 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

. : * 

execution should appear, not as an act of violence 
or panic on the part of the magistrate, but as the 
deliberate judgment of the supreme council of the 
State, which had seen the proofs of guilt and heard 
the confessions of the prisoners. By confirming the 
action of the consul, the Senate, though it could 
take no legal responsibility off his shoulders, could 
yet give him moral support to justify his severity 
from the charge of cruelty and tyranny.* 

Cicero's action throughout seems then to have been 
both righteous and prudent. He never lost his head 
though pressed by open enemies without and beset 
with traitors within the city. He refrained from 
striking prematurely, but allowed time for Catiline 
to appear in the rebel camp and for Lentulus to 
commit himself by overt acts of treason. He made 
the guilt of the conspirators so manifest, that even 
Caesar was obliged to concur in the verdict of 
" Guilty," and to sanction it by proposing an alter- 
native sentence as on convicted criminals. He 
baffled all attempts within the city by his vigilance, 
and finally blasted the hopes of Catiline by the exe- 

* Cicero sometimes does injustice to his own case by yielding (as 
most orators are liable to yield) to the temptation of proving too 
much. In the process of refuting the charge of cruelty (as he is fully 
entitled to do) by alleging the concurrence of the Senate, he is led on 
to use expressions which seem to evade his own legal responsibility 
for the decision (e. g. In Pis. ,7, 14). That Cicero, nevertheless, really 
strengthened his cause by this consultation seems to have been recog- 
nised by his adversaries ; for they found it worth their while to assert 
that Cicero had forged the Senatus Consultum. This absurd invention 
found a place in the preamble of Clodius' decree of banishment {Pro 
Dojho, 1 g, 50). 



63 B.C.] Cicero and Catiline. 157 

cution of his confederates. He acted throughout 
with the calmness and indifference to personal dan- 
ger proper to the chief magistrate of the Imperial 
State. He carried the Senate and people with him 
at each step, and so when the crisis came he could 
adopt the stern measures which led up surely to suc- 
cess, and yet at the same time could avoid any divi- 
sion in the government and enable it to present an 
united front to the enemy. There appears not a 
single false step to mark from the day when Cicero 
detached his fellow-consul from Catiline to the day 
when he broke the back of a formidable conspiracy 
by the death of five most guilty persons. 

Cicero was a man of mild temper and of constitu- 
tional timidity, but of honest heart and sincere pur- 
pose. On this occasion, in the presence of danger 
and under the stimulus of great responsibilities, he 
rose above himself and exhibited unexpected re- 
sources of strength and courage. Transformed by 
the exigencies of his duty into a man of action, he 
played his part with coolness, with vigour, and with 
marked practical success. His own conscience fully 
approved the deed. Nowhere, even in periods of the 
darkest depression and suffering, when all the world 
seems to have turned against him, do we find the 
least hint of a doubt that he has been in very truth 
the saviour of his country ; nor do the personal mis- 
fortunes which his act entailed upon him ever lead 
him to regret the act itself. " For these two mighty 
generals," he writes * of Caesar and Pompey at the 
beginning of the Civil War, " so far from setting their 

*AdAtt. y x., 4,4. 



1 58 Cicero and Catiline. [63 B.C. 

achievements above my own, I would not change my 
battered fortunes for theirs which seem so glorious. 
For what man can be happy when his country is en- 
slaved by him or deserted by him ? ... I am 
sustained by the proud reflection that, when I had 
the power, I did the State good service, or at any 
rate never had an intention that was not loyal, and 
that the Republic has foundered in the very storm 
which I foresaw fourteen years ago. I take this 
approving conscience with me as a companion in my 
flight." 



Note. — In the present issue pages 1 21-123 of this chapter have 
been re-written, so as to correct an error into which I was formerly 
led as to the date of the consular elections in the year 63 B.C. I had 
identified the intended massacre on the election-day (Cicero, Pro 
Mur.,, 26, 52) with the one fixed for October 28th (Cicero, Cat., i., 
3, 7). I am now convinced that those critics are right who maintain 
that the two passages refer to two separate attempts on Catiline's 
part. If this be so, there is no reason for putting the elections (as I 
had done) so late as October, or indeed at any other season than the 
usual one in the month of July. The events are therefore less 
crowded than I had supposed. I have to acknowledge the kindness 
uf Prof. A. S. Wilkins in calling my attention to this matter. 




CHAPTER VI. 

CICERO'S IDEAL PARTY. 
63-60 B.C. 

H E fortunes of Catiline had been 
watched with interest from the 
other side of the ^Egean Sea. 
Pompey saw clearly what a 
marvellous piece of good for- 
tune the folly of the revolu- 
tionaries was preparing for 
him, and in order to take ad- 
vantage of it he sent one of 
his lieutenants, Metellus Ne- 
pos, to Rome in time for the tribunician elections 
in 63 B.C. It was hoped that Catiline might make 
sufficient head against the government to alarm all 
classes, and Metellus as tribune was to seize the 
opportunity to carry by general assent a decree call- 
ing upon Pompey to return to Italy with his army 
and save the State from the anarchists. 
Plutarch * tells us that Cato, who had 
just set forth on a journey, met Nepos and his reti- 
nue entering the gates of Rome. Cato guessed that 




63 B.C. 



* Plutarch, Cato Minor, 20. 



159 



160 Pompey and the Catilinarians. [63 B.C. 

mischief was afoot, and in order to frustrate it he 
turned his horse's head and appeared as a rival can- 
didate for the tribunate. Both Cato, and Metellus 
Nepos were elected and entered on office on the ioth 
of December in the year 63 B.C. 

If Catiline had succeeded better, and if the gov- 
ernment had shown itself incapable of dealing with 
the conspiracy, Cato's opposition would have gone 
for very little, and a prize such as man never won 
before would have been within Pompey's grasp. 
Without serious danger, and without breach of duty 
or loyalty, he would have stepped at once into the 
position of " saviour of society " ; he would have 
been a Sulla without guilt or bloodshed, claiming 
from the gratitude of his fellow-citizens that defer- 
ence which a despot has to extort by force. Neither 
the jealous Nobles nor the baffled revolutionaries 
could have refused to recognise his pre-eminence 
and to accord him that place of acknowledged chief 
and protector of a free State, to which he aspired. 

Such were the prospects of Pompey during the 
October and November of the year 63 B.C. His 
hopes were rudely shattered by the Nones of De- 
cember. The conspiracy in the city was crushed, 
and Catiline's army had melted away. The " dignus 
vindice nodus " had been disentangled by other 
hands, and the " deus ex machina " had missed the 
opportunity for his appearance. Metellus Nepos 
proposed indeed that his patron should be given the 
command against Catiline * ; but his tribuneship had 

* Plutarch, Cato Minor \ 26, 2. Schol. Bob. ad Cic. Pro Sestio, ch. 
28 (Orelli, p. 302). 



63 B.C.] Mission of Metellus Nepos. 161 

begun five days too late ; his arguments had lost their 
force now that Catiline's power was maimed. 

His only resource was to exaggerate, as far as pos- 
sible, whatever elements of discontent and disorder 
were still available. Amongst these was the dispute 
whether the action of Cicero had been legally justi- 
fied or not. Might not a state of affairs, in which 
citizens could be put to death without trial, be repre- 
sented as calling for the intervention of the second 
Sulla? If Pompey could no longer be summoned to 
save the State from the anarchy of Catiline, might not 
the " tyranny of Cicero " * serve, for want of a better, 
as an available pretext? With this object Nepos 
took the first opportunity of entering a formal pro- 
test against the executions. When Cicero laid down 
his consulship on the last day of December, he pre- 
pared to address, as was the custom, a parting speech 
to the people. Metellus by virtue of his sacrosanct 
power as tribune interrupted him, declaring that he 
who had deprived Roman citizens of their right to 
plead in their own defence to the people, should not 
be allowed to speak to the people himself. He for- 
bade him therefore to do more than take the oath 
prescribed by law. Cicero affected compliance and 
advanced to take the oath ; then lifting up his voice 
so as to be heard by the assembled multitude, he 
swore : " This city and commonwealth have been pre- 
served from destruction by me." The unexpected 
appeal called forth a ready response from his audi- 
ence. The whole assembly shouted assent and swore 
along with him. 

* Plutarch, Cic, 23, 2, 
11 



1 62 Pompey ci7id the Cattltnartans. [62 B.C. 

The humiliation which Metellus had intended for 
Cicero was thus turned into a triumph, and attacks 
which the tribune made on him in the Senate on the 
following days were likewise repelled with vigour. 
Nevertheless the incident was calculated to cause 
him grave uneasiness. The hostility of Metellus 
Nepos might, in so far as he alone was concerned, 
be viewed with indifference ; but the menace implied 
in the action of Pompey's agent was in the highest 
degree alarming. The agent at least clearly thought 
that the loss of the opportunity of intervening as the 
supporter of law and order would make no difference 
in Pompey's action, except that he would now come 
as the ally of the Revolution instead of as its sup- 
pressor. 

Pompey's power as the commander of the only 
efficient army was so great, that the fortunes of the 
commonwealth hinged on his will, and the sole hope 
of the constitutionalists lay in his keeping true to his 
honour and obedient to the law. Cicero's anxiety 
was increased by a letter received somewhat later 
from Pompey, which was very cold in tone and 
contained no word of congratulation on the achieve- 
ments of his consulship. Pompey's annoyance may 
easily be understood ; and the only strange thing is 
that Cicero does not seem to have perceived how in- 
evitable it was that Pompey should feel displeased. 
If Catiline had been in Pompey's pay, he could not 
have served him better than by the untimely attempt 
at revolution. If Cicero had been Pompey's deadliest 
enemy, he could not have done more to thwart his 
action and frustrate his hopes. If Cicero had made 



62 B.C.J Metellus Nepos. 163 

a false step, if he had not parried Catiline's attempts 
to assassinate him, if he had fled from the post of 
danger and called for Pompey's assistance, if he had 
only allowed matters to drift until riot and massacre 
began in Rome, Pompey's course would have been 
easy and dignified ; duty and interest would have 
pointed in the same direction. But now for the first 
time in Pompey's life fortune conspicuously failed 
him, and he was called upon to decide between the 
sacrifice of his cherished hopes and the sacrifice of 
his conscience. The temptation was strong, and 
Pompey wavered and waited, hoping that chance 
would serve him once more. 

Meantime Metellus continued his machinations in 
the city. In spite of the defeat and death of Cati- 
line, he still pressed his proposal that Pompey should 
be summoned to restore order * ; and in these efforts 
he was encouraged and supported by Caesar, who 
was now praetor. Caesar certainly did not wish any 
such decree to be really carried ; but he saw that the 
proposal could not be forced through, and he wished 
by every means to embitter the relations between 
Pompey and the Senate, thus averting the one com- 
bination which would have been fatal to all revolu- 
tionary schemes. Cato steadily interposed his veto 
on the proposals of his colleague, and Metellus and 
Caesar persevered with inflammatory speeches and 
riotous assemblies. The disorder grew to such an 
extent that the Senate passed decrees which, under 
whatever form (for on this point we have conflicting 
statements), prohibited both Caesar and Metellus 

* Dio Cassius, xxxvii., 43, 1. 



1 64 Cicerds Ideal Party. [62 B.C. 

from the exercise of their magisterial functions. 
Caesar after a show of resistance submitted and shut 
himself up in his own house, and the Senate soon 
afterwards relieved him from his disabilities. Metel- 
lus declared that he was under stress of violence, and 
fled for protection to Pompey's camp. 

Cicero's brilliant success as consul had raised him 
at once to a place amongst the foremost statesmen 
of Rome. Cato made the first use of his new power 
as tribune to summon an assembly in which amidst 
the applause of the multitude he saluted Cicero as 
" the father of his country." The precedent was fol- 
lowed in later days in favour of the emperors, and 
the appellation came to be an official title.* When 
Cicero retired from office and took his seat among 
the consulars at the beginning of the year 62 B.C., the 
new consuls asked his opinion first in their consulta- 
tion of the Senate. His principles and line of policy 
are to be explained by the changes in the relation of 
parties which had occurred during the last seven years. 
The bond between the equestrian order and the demo- 
crats, who were equally hostile to the constitution 
of Sulla, had naturally been loosened by their joint 
victory. The Knights had now recovered their place 
in the jury-courts and their seats in the theatre, and 
had for the present no special grievance against the 
Senate ; the barrier of aristocratic exclusiveness had 
been forced by Cicero's election to the consulship, 
and everything tended towards a reconciliation be- 
tween the first and the second order in the State. 



* The contrast is marked by Juvenal (Sat., viii., 244), " Roma 
patrem patriae Ciceronem libera dixit," 



62 B.C.] The Harmony of the Orders. 165 

This new union was further cemented by a common 
fear of the revolutionary designs of Catiline. The 
Roman Knights could feel no sympathy with the party 
which had favoured men who conspired to abolish 
debt and to wage war on capital. Hence it was 
natural and proper that Cicero and the equestrian 
party, of which he was one of the acknowledged 
chiefs, should be on the side of the constitution 
when the great crisis came. The consul who had 
risen from the ranks defended the State from revo- 
lution as vigorously as the proudest aristocrat could 
have done, and his success was largely owing to the 
staunchness with which the equestrian order stood 
by its leader and by the Senate. To consolidate 
and perpetuate the " harmony between the orders" 
thus attained was the dream of Cicero's politics, 
"the good cause" as he often calls it. His ideal 
party was to include the moderate men of both 
orders, and their combination was to present a firm 
barrier against revolution. As the equestrian order 
contained not only the great capitalists of Rome but 
the men of wealth and local importance in the coun- 
try towns, this u concordia ordinum " implied the 
" consensio Italiae," on which the statesman from 
Arpinum naturally laid great stress. 

But no union of parties in Rome could be suffi- 
cient unless accompanied by a reconciliation between 
the civil and the military power. To accomplish 
this Cicero was anxious to secure Pompey as the 
leader of his coalition. Seriously as he had crossed 
the path of his chosen hero, his own loyalty towards 
him remained unshaken. He marked him out as the 



1 66 Cicero s Ideal Party. [62 B.C. 

man fit to play the part of Scipio, the soldier-chief 
of a free State, and alongside of him Cicero hoped 
to fill the place of Laelius, the man of peace, of 
eloquence, and of learning, who could supplement 
the qualities of the military leader. This apportion- 
ment of functions was suggested in a letter which 
Cicero wrote to Pompey, in reply to the one which 
had caused him so much uneasiness early in the year. 
Cicero's letter* is naturally severe in tone, and he 
refers not without dignity to his own services to 
Pompey in the past : " It is my great satisfaction to 
be conscious that I have not failed in supporting my 
friends ; and if on any occasion these fail to support 
me in turn, I am well content that the balance of 
obligations conferred should rest with me. Of one 
thing I feel sure, that if the zeal which I have always 
shown in your service proves an insufficient link to 
bind us the one to the other, yet nevertheless the 
interests of the State will draw and unite us together. 
. . . When you have made yourself acquainted 
with the truth of the case, you will readily allow me, 
as scarcely less than Lselius, to be associated both as 
a political ally and as a friend with you who are so 
much greater than Africanus." 

The failure of Cicero's " good cause " is the story 
which we have to trace of the politics of the ensuing 
years ; but it may be well to attempt, once for all, to 
arrive at a judgment on the practicability of his 
ideal. The problem presented to Rome was one 
which had never been solved in the ancient world. 
Free States there had been and great Empires, but 

* Ad Fam. v., 7. 



6 2 B .C.3 Cicero s Ideal Party. 167 

the two had always proved mutually exclusive. The 
question then which pressed for solution was this : 
How can a free State be at the same time a con- 
quering and governing State? How can an Empire 
be organised without the sacrifice of political liberty ? 
In the absence of representative government, the 
sole forms of free State known to the ancients were 
the Confederation, an organisation which common- 
sense at once discarded as too loose and inefficient 
for the purpose, and the City-state, as it had been 
elaborated by Greek politicians and political philoso- 
phers. To the mind of all Roman statesmen, ex- 
cepting perhaps Augustus,* liberty and the City-state 
were inextricably bound up together, and under 
these conditions the task of uniting liberty and 
Empire was in truth an insuperable labour. Caesar's 
failure to perform it was at least as conspicuous as 
that of Cicero and Cato. It is to Caesar's credit that 
he saw that the Empire must be maintained and 
organised at whatever sacrifice ; but his plan of 
organising it was simply to throw up in despair the 
problem which he was called to solve. He reverted 
to the method of primitive despotism, that crude 
and long discredited form of government by which 
Egypt, Assyria, and Persia had ruled and degraded 
vast populations. He renounced all the political 
inheritance of the civilised West, and all the glorious 



* Suetonius (Aug., 46) tells us that Augustus conceived the project 
of having the magistrates, and through them the Senate, elected not 
by a mass-meeting at Rome but by a poll taken in the country-towns. 
This plan contains the germ of a representative system, but unhappily 
it was never carried into effect. 



1 68 Cicerds Ideal Party. [62 B.C. 

hopes and ideals with which Greece and Rome had 
enriched the world.* To these hopes and ideals 
Cicero clung, and unhappily he clung at the same 
time to the use of the very imperfect machinery 
which Greece had invented for the fashioning of 
political liberty and order. 

A State great and powerful, as Rome had now 
become, had really outgrown the forms adapted to 
the government of a city. These forms supplied no 
means by which the collective will of the great body 
of Roman citizens could find a regular and peaceful 
expression ; they afforded no effective machinery for 
making the provincial administration work in due 
harmony and subordination to the central govern- 
ment, or for bringing home to the central government 
itself any sense of responsibility whether towards 
citizens or subjects. The Senate was too weak 
when it had to deal with the details of government 
throughout the empire, or to defend the civilised 
world by military force and at the same time to keep 
the soldiers and their commanders in order; it was 
too strong, whenever for the sake of its own interests 
it chose to ignore or to defy public opinion at 
home. The rectification of abuses, which with better 
arrangements might have been accomplished by a 
change of ministry, was possible under this perverse 
system only at the cost of revolution. 

Cicero seems to have been unconscious of these 
defects. He never saw that, if the free State was to 
survive, it must invent a fresh machinery of govern- 
ment. He looked on the forces which destroyed the 
* See below, pp. 349 to 353. 



62 B.C.] Cicero s Ideal Party. 169 

Republic as the devices of wicked men breaking into 
the system, whereas the system was in truth largely 
responsible for the mischief. He assumed that the 
traditional powers and methods recognised in the 
constitution of Rome were absolute and immutable, 
and that all his combinations must be within the 
lines thus prescribed for him. These limitations 
precluded any of those radical reforms which alone 
could have permanently saved Rome from her fatal 
revolution. But as a temporary expedient, staving 
off the evil day for that generation at least, and 
giving time for the Republic to work out its problems 
and re-model its institutions, Cicero's policy seems to 
have been far superior to that of any other statesman 
of his time. If the great disaster of the military 
despotism was to be avoided, it was necessary that 
Senate and Knights should compose their differences 
once for all and show a united front to the enemy. 
Still more necessary was it, that Pompey should be 
attached to the constitution, and diverted from any 
alliance with the revolutionary party. To accomplish 
this, Cicero was for frankly conceding to Pompey 
the exceptional position which he claimed as the first 
man in the State, and was quite content himself to 
act as Pompey's lieutenant and coadjutor. 

For the success of any such combination, it was 
needful that all the parties with which he had to 
work should have shared Cicero's insight into the 
dangers of the time and his willingness to make 
sacrifices to meet them. But Cicero failed in his 
efforts to bring this conviction home to his contem- 
poraries. Nobles alike and men of business preferred 



1 70 Pompey s Policy. [62 B.C. 

their private interests and animosities and prejudices 
to the pursuit of a sane and consistent policy ; and 
Pompey, the leader of Cicero's choice, was by no 
means equal to the difficult and delicate part which 
he had to play. 

The most obvious and pressing danger to liberty 
was however for the moment averted. With the 
outraged tribune in his camp, Pompey was furnished 
with the same sort of pretext for armed rebellion as 
that of which Caesar availed himself, when he crossed 
the Rubicon thirteen years later. Of the action of 
Caesar Plutarch pithily remarks,* that Caesar was far 
too sensible a man to have gone to war to redress 
the wrongs of the tribunes, if he had not made up 
his mind for war on other grounds. The same may 
be said of Pompey on the earlier occasion. The 
real question which he had to decide was whether 
the object of his own policy could be attained by 
espousing the tribune's quarrel. If the prize for 
which Pompey was seeking had been the same which 
Caesar afterwards won, if Pompey had desired to 
found a despotism for himself on the ruins of Roman 
liberty, then unquestionably success was within his 
grasp. The Republic had an able general in Lucul- 
lus, but it had no troops fit to oppose to Pompey 's 
veterans. He was tempted to advance to a field on 
which victory was certain ; but he knew that such a 
victory would cause the destruction of all the ele- 
ments of Republican liberty, it would leave him no 
choice but to rule the Romans by the domination of 
naked force, and it would imply the renunciation of 

* Plutarch, Ant., 6, 2. 



62 B.C.] Pompey Disbands his Army. 171 

his own noble ambition to be the chief citizen of a 
free State. From such a crime Pompey shrank. 
If he had been a man of frank and generous dispo- 
sition, he would have instantly rejected the very 
idea of such a treason with horror and indignation. 
But this was not in the nature of Pompey. He 
spent the greater part of the year 62 in loitering on 
the homeward road, brooding over the ruin of his 
hopes of the year before, watching for the chance of 
making his power felt in some less odious way, and 
all the while dallying with the temptation to turn his 
arms against his country. Throughout these months 
Pompey preserved a gloomy silence, and the Roman 
world waited in suspense for his decision. 

At length towards the end of the year the dic- 
tates of honour and of conscience triumphed over 
those of ambition. Perhaps the prospect which 
Cicero's letter had held out to him may have in- 
fluenced him in some degree for good ; for Cicero, 
writing on the 1st of January, 61 B.C., says, " I have 
good evidence that Pompey is most friendly to me." 
A few days before this letter was written, Pompey 
had landed in Italy. His mind was now made up, 
and he resolved to give striking evidence of his 
loyalty, and to remove at once all apprehension of 
civil war. As soon as he landed at Brundisium he 
disbanded his troops and proceeded to Rome with a 
small escort. So far, Pompey's action was straight 
forward and decisive. He put away from himself 
all possibility of appealing to unlawful force, and 
threw himself unreservedly for support on the good- 
will of his fellow-citizens, the only rightful basis of 



1 72 Cicero's Ideal Party. [62 B.C. 

authority. Unhappily his capacity for a plain and 
vigorous policy seems to have been exhausted by 
this single good action. He fell back on his pitiful 
habit of silence and reserve, never perceiving that 
the statesman who tries to refrain from committing 
himself on the main political issues of the time 
must of necessity become impotent and ridiculous. 
The natural and logical sequence to the dispersion of 
Pompey 's army was a frank union with the constitu- 
tionalists ; and this implied a clear and unmistakable 
approval of the action of the government in the matter 
of Catiline. But for this Cicero looked in vain. 

During the month of December, 62 B.C., another 
question had arisen in Rome, petty enough in itself 
but destined to have serious consequences. A young 
patrician named Publius Clodius was caught, dis- 
guised as a woman, invading the mysteries of the 
" Good Goddess," whose privacy was polluted by 
the presence of any male at her worship. The sacri- 
fices were performed in the house of Caesar, who was 
praetor for the year, * and in pursuit of an intrigue 
with Caesar's wife Clodius thrust himself into the 
company of Vestals and matrons. Caesar divorced 
his wife, and declined to stir further in the business/}* 



* See above p. 138. 

f Cicero upbraids him for " lack of gall " in not resenting the affront 
which Clodius had put upon him (De Har. Resp. y 18, 38). But 
Caesar had just been engaged in an intrigue of his own which caused 
Pompey to divorce his wife Mucia ; he doubtless felt that his appear- 
ance in the character of the injured husband would be somewhat ridic- 
ulous. When we recollect that Pompey consoled himself for the loss 
of Mucia by taking Caesar's own daughter to fill her place, it must be 
owned that Roman husbands accepted these mishaps rather calmly. 




BONA DEA : THE GODDESS OF FERTILITY. 
{Dtiruy.) 





COIN OF C/ESAR, HEAD OF VENUS. 

{Cohen.) 



61 B.C.] Sacrilege of Clodius. 1 73 

But the matter could not rest there. The virgins 
performed afresh the ceremonies whose virtue had 
been impaired ; the pontiffs declared that sacrilege 
had been committed, and it followed that the State 
must purge itself from the impiety by the punish- 
ment of the offender. After discussions in the 
Senate, the consuls were instructed to bring a bill 
before the People, constituting a court for his trial. 
A tribune, Fufius, proposed in Clodius' interest a 
rival scheme, which differed from that of the Senate 
by providing that the jury should be chosen by lot, 
whereas the consular bill directed the praetor to 
select the jurymen. 

This was the condition of affairs when Pompey 
arrived early in February before the gates of Rome, 
and the world eagerly awaited his utter- 

. . 61 B.C. 

ances on all these burning questions. 
Cicero gives a graphic account * of his first appear- 
ances before the people and the Senate. " I have 
already told you what Pompey's first speech was 
like, with no comfort for the wretched, too un- 
substantial to please the disloyal, unsatisfactory 
to the comfortable classes, and with not sufficient 
firmness for honest men ; and so it fell flat. Not 
long after, at the instigation of the consul Piso, 
that paltry fellow Fufius the tribune again put 
Pompey forward. The scene of this was the Fla- 
minian Circus on a market-day with a large attend- 
ance. He questioned him as to whether he approved 
of a praetor selecting the jurors,who were to sit as that 
praetor's court — this being the arrangement proposed 
*AdAtl. 9 i., 14, 1. 



1 74 Pompey s Return. [61 B.C. 

by the Senate in the case of Clodius. Then Pompey 
replied very much ' en grand seigneur ' ; he said that 
the authority of the Senate weighed heavily with him 
on all occasions and had always done so, and so on 
at great length. Next the consul Messalla asked 
Pompey in the Senate, what was his opinion regard- 
ing the sacrilege and regarding the bill that had been 
proposed. He replied by praising in general terms 
all the decrees of that House ; and as he sat down 
again beside me, he remarked — ' I suppose I have 
said enough on your business as well.' " 

It is not surprising that this hesitation and in- 
ability to speak his mind should have produced a 
bad impression on Pompey's contemporaries. The 
desire to keep things open and the w r eak love of 
silence and reserve could only be indulged in at the 
expense of his reputation for honesty and straight- 
forwardness. It is of no avail that a man has been 
seen to make great sacrifices on occasion to the cause 
of duty, if his daily bearing contradicts the idea of 
his sincerity. Cicero was strongly provoked with 
Pompey's conduct and expressed his vexation in no 
measured language to his friend * — " there is no 
courtesy, no candour in him, no sense of honour in 
politics, nothing high-minded or vigorous or straight- 
forward/' 

On the other hand the leading Optimates were 
much to blame in not exerting themselves to win 
Pompey. Whenever he made advances, they were 
coldly received. Pompey showed what he wished, 
when he proposed a series of matrimonial alliances 

*Ad Att., i., 13, 4. 



61 B.C.] Pompey and the Nobles. 1 75 

which would have united him closely with Cato. 
Cato rejected his overtures, and soon afterwards saw 
Cause to exult in his short-sighted way over his own 
prudence. Pompey spent money too freely at the 
elections in 61 B.C. in order to secure the return of 
his partisan Afranius as consul. " I should have 
shared in the ill-fame of this," said Cato, " if I had 
allied myself to Pompey by marriage. ,, Plutarch, who 
is our authority for the story, very sensibly adds*: 
" However, if we are to judge by the event, Cato 
made a fatal error in rejecting the alliance, and 
leaving Pompey to turn to Caesar and contract a 
marriage which, by uniting the forces of the two, 
nearly ruined Rome and actually destroyed the 
constitution. None of these things would have hap- 
pened, if Cato had not taken fright at the small faults 
of Pompey, and so allowed him to commit the greatest 
of all in building up the power of another." 

Meanwhile the business of Clodius had entered on 
a fresh phase. Hortensius, who was one of the prom- 
inent supporters of the bill, fearing that it would 
be vetoed at last by Fufius, suggested that it might 
be well to paralyse his opposition by accepting Fufius* 
own bill as a substitute. The guilt of Clodius, he 
thought, was so manifest that no jury, however con- 
stituted, could fail to find a true verdict on the 
question of fact. He would " cut Clodius' throat," 
he protested " even with a leaden sword." Accord- 
ingly, the experiment was tried ; the consuls withdrew 
their bill, and that of Fufius was carried unopposed. 
When the jury came to be empanelled, it was manifest 

* Plutarch, Cato Minor t 30, 5. 



1 76 Trial of Clodius. \&\ b.c. 

that the lot had fallen unluckily. The challenges 
of the accused cleared out the best men, while those 
of the prosecutor could make little impression oil 
the mass of indifferent characters whose names had 
come from the ballot-box ; u there never was a more 
rascally lot collected round a gaming-table." * 

Clodius' defence was an alibi. He produced wit- 
nesses to swear that he was never near Caesar's house 
that night, but was fifty miles away at Interamna. 
Unfortunately Cicero had happened to meet him in 
Rome only three hours before, and he earned Clo- 
dius' deadly hatred by coming forward in disproof of 
the alibi. At first it seemed as if the jury were 
going to decide according to the facts. When 
Cicero came forward to give his evidence and the 
partisans of Clodius hooted and attempted to mob 
him, the jurors rose as one man, and interposed their 
persons for his protection. They protested likewise 
against the coercion of the court by Clodius' rabble, 
and applied to the Senate for an armed guard, which 
was immediately granted. Hortensius was trium- 
phant, and all the world believed that a verdict of 
Guilty was inevitable. But a powerful factor had 
been left out of consideration. Crassus was the 
richest man in Rome, and though he loved his 
money dearly, he loved power and influence still 
more, and was ready to spend freely when a political 
object was in view. He had lately become security 
to Caesar's creditors for about £200,000, f in order to 
enable him to get safely out of Rome and to take 

* Jd Atl. y i., 16, 3. 

j 830 talents. Plutarch, Ccesar, 11, 1. 



61 B.C.] Acquittal of Clodius. i yy 

up his command in Spain. It had doubtless been 
settled between the two, that Clodius would be use- 
ful to them in the future, and that he must be saved 
at all costs. Crassus accordingly paid down an 
enormous sum of money, and in the course of two 
days bought the votes of a majority of the jury. 

The acquittal was a heavy blow to the hopes of 
the constitutional party. The scandal was so noto- 
rious that it seemed to proclaim the hopelessness of 
orderly government and pure justice in Rome. 
" That settlement/' Cicero writes, 45 " " which you used 
to ascribe to my policy, and I to Providence, which 
seemed firmly established by the union of all loyal 
citizens and by the events of my consulship, has 
now, I must tell you, crumbled beneath our feet, un- 
less Heaven takes pity on us, all through this single 
verdict — if indeed one can call it a verdict — that 
thirty men, as worthless and base as you could find 
in our State, should take money to outrage all law 
and all right, and that when every man, and, let 
alone men, every beast in Rome knows that a thing 
was done, Thalna and Plautus and Spongia and 
riff-raff of that sort should decide that it was not 
done." 

The scandal gave rise to some neat epigrams. 
" They did not trust you on your oath," Clodius 
said, taunting Cicero. " Twenty-five of them," was 
the retort, " did trust me, and the other thirty-one 
certainly did not trust you, for they got their money 
down beforehand." f In the same vein was the re- 

* AdAtt.,i., 16, 6. 
\AdAtt., i., 16, 10. 



1 78 Cicerds Ideal Party. [61 B.C. 

mark of Catulus to a juror : " What made you ask 
us for a guard ? Were you afraid that your pocket 
would be lightened as you went home from the 
court ? " * 

It may be presumed that Pompey was disgusted 
with the shameless perversion of justice, for which 
the democratic leaders were responsible. At any 
rate we find constant evidence in the letters of the 
months which follow, that Pompey was now anxious 
to be on good terms with the constitutionalists, and 
that more especially he was drawing towards Cicero. 
He never frankly gives up his clumsy reticence, but 
it melts gradually away, and he finds heart at last to 
commit himself to a definite approval of the acts of 
Cicero's consulship. In the following December 
Cicero writes to Atticus f : " However, 
since your friends " (the equestrian order) 
" seem unsteady, another road to safety is, as I hope, 
being laid. I cannot speak fully of it by letter, but 
I will indicate what I mean. I am on very intimate 
terms with Pompey. I perceive what you will say ; 
yes, I will be cautious, where caution is needed, and 
I will write again to you more at length about my 
political projects/' On the 1st of Febru- 
ary he says % : " Meanwhile you cannot 
find a single true statesman, no nor the ghost of one. 
One man might be, if he chose, my friend, for I wish 
you to understand that he is very much so, Pompey ; 
but he only stares in silence on his lap, studying 



*AdAtt., i., 16, 5. 
f Ad Att. t i., 17, 10. 
% AdAtL, i., 18,6. 



60 B.C.] Cicero and Pompey. 1 79 

the pattern on that triumphal robe of his. * Crassus 
will not say a word to hazard his popularity : for the 
rest, you know them ; they are so stupid that they 
think that the State may founder, and yet that their 
fish-ponds will be safe. The single man who cares 
for the public good is Cato ; and he brings to 
the work principle and honesty, but, as it seems 
to me, very little judgment or sense." Next month, 
Cicero gives to his friend a fuller explanation of the 
political situation and of his own relations March 
to Pompey. Ever since his consulship ^ BC - 
he has f " never ceased to act in politics with 
the same great aims, and worthily to maintain the 
dignity then achieved." But the acquittal of Clo- 
dius, the weakness of the equestrian order, and the 
jealousy of the Nobles — " all made me feel that I 
must look out for some stronger forces and more 
trustworthy defences. My first concern was with 
Pompey. He had held his tongue far too long ; but 
I brought him round to a proper state of mind ; so 
that, speaking in the Senate on several occasions, he 
ascribed the preservation of the Empire and the 
peace of the world to my action." Again 

• Tv/r n j 4. «t u *.- May, 60 B.C. 

in May we find $: "In your observations 
on affairs of State you argue like a true friend and a 
man of sense, and what you say is really not far 
away from my own sentiments. I quite agree with 

* ■* Togulam illam pictam silentio tuetur suam." I venture to give 
this poetical sense to " tuetur," though it is rare in Cicero. The 
sentence might mean ' 4 by his silence he keeps his embroidered robe 
for his own," but this is very flat. 

f Ad Att., i., 19, 6. 

% Ad Ait, i„ 20, 3. 



1 80 Cicerds Ideal Party. [60 B.C. 

you that I must not flinch from my post of honour, 
and that I must not enlist under the banner of any 
other, but must effect a junction at the head of my 
own forces. It is true likewise that the person you 
name has no breadth or greatness of policy and that 
he is too much inclined to truckle to the mob. But 
for all that, it is of some use for the quiet of my own 
life, and of infinitely greater use for the State, that 
the blows aimed at me by bad citizens should be 
parried ; and this I accomplished when I strength- 
ened the wavering resolution of a man with such a 
position, such influence, and such interest, and 
brought him to frustrate the hopes of the disloyal 
by recording his approval of my action." Unhap- 
pily, though Cicero was so far successful in winning 
Pompey towards the side of the Senate, he failed, 
as we shall see just now, in inducing the senatorial 
party frankly to meet Pompey's advances. 

Pompey's position throughout these months was 
full of anxiety and annoyance. He had pledged his 
word to his soldiers that their services against Mithri- 
dates should be recompensed by grants of land, for 
the purchase of which ample means were provided 
by the revenues with which his conquests had en- 
riched the Roman Treasury. But his efforts to get 
the necessary decrees passed had hitherto been un- 
availing. Another vexation was, that the Senate 
refused to confirm the settlement of Asia which 
Pompey had made before his departure. All the 
affairs of the provinces of the East with the adja- 
cent free cities and client kingdoms had been regu- 
lated and organised by Pompey, and he now wished 



60 B.C.] The Nobles Oppose Pompey. 181 

that his arrangements should be sanctioned en bloc. 
The Senate refused to do this, and insisted that each 
detail should be reviewed and voted on separately. 
Thus Pompey was exposed at every point to a gall- 
ing and wearisome opposition. 

His own proceedings showed, as usual, clumsiness 
and want of tact. By a lavish expenditure of money 
he succeeded in thrusting in one of his adherents, 
Afranius, as consul for the year 60 B.C. ; but Afranius 
was disliked by every one and was quite incapable of 
serving his master effectively. " He is such an abso- 
lute nonentity/' writes Cicero,* " that he does not 
know what he has bought " ; and again : " He con- 
ducts himself in such a way that his office is not so 
much a consulship as a blot on the reputation of our 
Great One." f 

The other consul was Metellus Celer, the brother 
of Cicero's old opponent Nepos. Celer has left 
record of what manner of man he was in a curiously 
insolent letter which he addressed to Cicero at the 
time of the dispute with his brother, a letter which 
Cicero answered with admirable spirit and temper. % 
If we may trust Cicero's judgment, § Celer was not 
a bad man at bottom, and meant well by his coun- 
try ; but he must have been a very stupid and wrong- 
headed politician. He now set himself in violent 
opposition to Pompey, and thwarted all his efforts 
to provide for his soldiers. This object had been 



*AdAtt, i., 19, 4. 

\ Ad Att. y i., 20, 5. 

% Ad Fam., v., I and 2. See also below p. 198. 

%AdAtt, ii. r i ; 4, 



1 82 Cicero s Ideal Party. [60 B.C. 

undertaken by Flavius, one of the tribunes for the 
year 60 B.C., who proposed in Pompey's interest an 
Agrarian Law. Cicero acted in a wise and states- 
manlike manner. He suggested amendments in the 
proposal to make it more workable, and then gave 
the measure his support. In the month 
of March he writes * : " The chief po- 
litical news is that an Agrarian Law is being vigor- 
ously pushed by the tribune Flavius, backed by 
Pompey ; nothing in it is popular except its backer. 
Out of this bill, with full assent of the meeting, I 
cut all the clauses which infringed on vested inter- 
ests ; I exempted all the land which had been public 
property in the tribuneship of Tiberius Gracchus f ; 
I confirmed Sulla's grantees in their holdings, and 
left in full possession the people of Volaterra and 
Arretium, whose lands Sulla had confiscated but 
never parcelled out. One principle of the bill, 
however, I accepted, namely, that land for distri- 
bution should be purchased out of the wind-fall 
which the Treasury will have in the income to be 
derived during the next five years from the newly 
acquired sources of revenue. But the Senate sets 
itself in opposition to the principle of any Agrarian 
Law whatever, under the idea that some new power 
for Pompey is designed. Pompey on his side puts 
all his energies into carrying the bill." 

The struggle over this question was enlivened by 
a ludicrous episode. \ The consul Metellus carried 

* Ad Att. t i., 19, 4. 

\ This would be mainly the Campanian land. See p. 200. 

J Dio Cassius, xxxvii., 50. 



60 B.C.] Bill of Flavins. 1 83 

his obstruction to lengths which Flavius considered 
unfair. The tribune thereupon by virtue of his 
sacred and inviolable office personally laid hands on 
the consul, as on one guilty of contempt, and 
dragged him off to prison. It would have been easy 
for Metellus to appeal to another tribune to grant 
him protection ; but he preferred the cheap martyr- 
dom with which his adversary provided him. Me- 
tellus then sat in his prison, but he issued from 
thence a summons to the Senate to assemble there. 
Not to be baffled, the tribune placed his bench 
across the prison door and his own sacrosanct per- 
son on the bench, thus setting an insuperable barrier 
between the senators and the consul within. The 
Fathers of the State, thus beaten off in front, made 
an attack on the rear, and began pulling down the 
back wall of the prison to get at their consul. When 
the farce had reached this point, Pompey sent word 
in hot haste to his tribune that he had better let 
Metellus out. 

Under the effect of these ridiculous proceedings 
" the agrarian project began to fall flat." * The 
Nobles delighted in the discomfiture of Pompey and 
gloried in their own outrageous folly. The demands 
of Pompey were at this time exceedingly moderate ; 
the loyalty and good faith which he had shown in 
disbanding his army, might fairly claim liberal and 
friendly treatment ; and the constitutionalists were 
bound in honour to see that Pompey did not lose by 
his respect for the constitution. Common-sense, 
too, might have shown them that by a little con- 

*AdAtt. % \\„ 1, 6 



184 Opposition of Nobles to Pompey. [60 B.C. 

ciliatory action on their part they could now win over 

the great soldier to the service of the Senate, and 

that here lay the only hope of averting the danger 

which threatened. A fair chance of respite was now 

offered them, and but for their folly in rejecting it, 

Horace would not have had to date from this year 

the 

11 Motum ex Metello consule civicum," 

which destroyed the Roman Republic. Cato, Hor- 
tensius, and Lucullus were blind to their own 
plainest interests, and their action at this crisis com- 
pels us to recognise that they had none of the 
instincts of statesmen. A petty jealousy of Pompey 
seemed to dominate all their conduct. They strove 
to make him feel that in renouncing the rule of the 
sword he had laid himself at their mercy. Thus 
they drove him to unconstitutional methods which 
were destined to ruin himself and them alike. 

The Republic had experienced a heavy loss by the 
death of Catulus in the latter part of the year 61 B.C., 
and since then Cicero stood alone in recommending 
a sane policy. " I am acting," he writes, * " and will 
act, so as not to incur the reproach that my old 
achievement was only the outcome of chance. My 
* honest men/ of whom you speak, and that * Sparta,' f 
in which, as you say, my lot is cast, shall not only 
never be deserted by me, but if I am deserted by 
them I shall remain firm by my own principles. At 
the same time I wish you to understand, that since 

* Ad A ft., i., 20, 3. 

t Atticus had quoted a Greek proverb : " Sparta is your lot; 
make the best of Sparta." 



60 B.C.] Estrangement of Knights. 185 

the death of Catulus I am holding on this most 
excellent way alone, without escort and without 
companionship." 

Pompey was kept aloof by the obstinacy and in- 
gratitude of the Nobles, and this was in itself suffi- 
cient to spoil the hopes which Cicero had entertained 
for his " good cause." But in yet another quarter 
" the good cause " was perilously shaken. In these 
same months the "harmony of the orders," the 
union between Senate and Knights, which Cicero 
had taken such pains to realise, showed signs of dis- 
solution. The scandal of the acquittal of Clodius 
had drawn attention to the corruption of the law- 
courts, and Cato and others pressed for vigorous 
measures against all jurors who had taken bribes. 
But as two-thirds of the jurors were now not of 
senatorial rank, such measures could not be carried 
through without infringing the cherished immunities 
of the Roman Knights. * At the same time the 
Knights had another quarrel with the Senate, be- 
cause it refused to give them the consideration 
which they held to be their due in the arrangement 
of their contracts with the State. In both cases 
Cicero would have humoured the equestrian order, 
but he pleaded its cause in vain. We first hear of 
these jars in a letter of December, 61 B.C. f 

" Here we are living in a political condition that 
is precarious, pitiful, and unstable. For, as I fancy 
you must have heard, our friends the Knights are 
all but alienated from the Senate. In the first place 

* See above, p. 35. 
\AdAtt. y i., 17, 8. 



1 86 Cicero's Ideal Party. f6i B.C. 

they are deeply offended that a bill has been intro- 
duced on the recommendation of the Senate, pro- 
viding that all persons who have received bribes as 
jurors shall be put on their trial. It happened by 
accident that I was not in the House, when that de- 
cree was carried, and I perceived that the equestrian 
order was offended, though silent ; so I took an op- 
portunity to lecture the Senate, and did it, so far as 
I can judge, with much force. The claim of my 
clients was hardly a reputable one, but I urged it at 
length and in a dignified tone. Now we have on 
our hands another whim of the Knights, which it is 
hard to put up with ; however I have not only put 
up with it, but made the best of it I could for them. 
The company, which farmed the province of Asia 
from the censors, complain that they have been too 
eager in their bidding, and have contracted to pay 
too high a figure. They demand therefore that the 
bargain shall be cancelled. I am the chief among 
their backers, or rather I should say the second, for 
Crassus was the man who egged them on to make 
the demand. It is an awkward business, and such a 
confession of their own want of caution is discredit- 
able enough. But there is every fear that, if their 
petition is rejected, they will sever themselves en- 
tirely from the Senate. I have risen to the emer- 
gency as best I could, and managed that they should 
have a full House and a friendly hearing, and I made 
long speeches on the 1st and 2d of December con- 
cerning the dignity and union of the orders. . . . 
The business is not settled, but the feeling of the 
Senate has been clearly shown. Only one speaker 



60 B .c.] Estrangement of Knights. 187 

opposed us, Metellus the consul-elect ; there was 
another to come, our hero Cato, but the debate had 
to be adjourned before his turn was reached. Thus 
I stand firm by our plans and principles, and main- 
tain so far as I can the union of the orders which 
was cemented by my exertions." 

Cato's opposition proved serious, and it was con- 
ducted in a singularly provoking manner. Cato was 
a master of the art of Parliamentary obstruction, and 
was able by means of long speeches and irrelevant 
objections to put off indefinitely the decision of the 
House. " For two good months/* 

Feb., 60 B.C. 

writes Cicero, in a subsequent letter,* 
"he has been harrying the unhappy tax-farmers, 
who used to be his best friends, and he will not allow 
the Senate to give an answer to their petition. So 
we on our side are obliged to obstruct all other busi- 
ness until an answer has been given to the tax- 
farmers." 

Such were the causes of discord which broke up 
Cicero's ideal party. The precious months, during 
which it was still possible that a union should be 
consolidated between Pompey, the Senate, and the 
equestrian order, were fast passing away. Cicero 
alone of Roman statesmen saw what was to be aimed 
at ; but he had preached in vain, and now the man 
was at hand, who was to take advantage of the con- 
fusions of the situation and organise the conflicting 
forces for his own purposes. In a letter written 
early in June we find a casual remark that Caesar is 
expected in two days' time. For the last year and 

* Ad Att. t i., 18, 7. 



1 88 Cicero f s Ideal Party. [60 B.Ci 

a half he had been away in his Spanish governor^ 
ship, and his return marks the beginning of the 
Revolution. In the same letter* we get a lively 
sketch of the situation just before Caesar's arrival, 
and of the hopes and fears which Cicero entertained 
at the moment. 

"You chide me gently about my intimacy with 
Pompey. Now I would not have you think that I 
am leagued with him in order to get protection for 
myself ; but the position of affairs is such, that if 
any difference arose between him and me, it would 
inevitably produce serious disturbances in the State. 
Against this mischief I have provided, not by swerv- 
ing from my own honourable policy, but by inducing 
him to amend his ways and renounce some of his 
popularity-hunting vagaries. . . . What now if 
Caesar likewise, who has a marvellous fair wind in his 
sails just now, can be brought round by me to a 
better mind? Shall I have done any great harm to 
the State? Why, if no one were envious of me, if 
all supported me as they ought to do, even then a 
treatment which should restore the unsound mem- 
bers of the commonwealth would be preferable to 
heroic surgery. But now, when the Knights, whom 
I once posted with you as their chief and standard- 
bearer on the slopes of the Capitol, when the 
Knights, I say, have deserted the Senate, and when 
our chief men think that they are in the seventh 
heaven if they have bearded mullets in their fish- 
ponds who will come to feed out of their hands, do 
you not think that I gain a point, if I bring it about 

*AdAti. t ii., 1,6. 



60 B.C.] Political Situation 1 89 

that those who could injure me should not wish to 
do so? For as for our friend Cato, you cannot be 
fonder of him than I am ; at the same time, with 
the very best intentions and in all good faith he 
sometimes does mischief to the State. For he 
makes his proposals as if he were speaking in Plato's 
Republic instead of in Romulus' gutter. What can 
be fairer than that every man should be put on his 
trial, who has taken a bribe for his verdict ? Such 
was Cato's proposal, and the Senate agreed. So the 
Knights declare war against the House, not against 
me, for I protested. What could be more barefaced 
than the tax-farmers repudiating their bargain ? For 
all that we had better have put up with the loss for 
the sake of keeping the good-will of the order. Cato 
resisted and gained his point. And so now when we 
have a consul shut up in prison and riot continually 
afoot, not a finger has been stirred to help by those 
who used to throng to the defence of the constitution 
whenever I or my immediate successors in the con- 
sulship called for their assistance." 

With this quotation we leave the politics and par- 
ties of Rome for a moment, to turn to other matters 
which are wanting to complete the picture of Cicero's 
life during the years following his consulship. In 
the next chapter we shall find what use Caesar made 
of the political material which lay awaiting his return. 

Only two of Cicero's extant speeches belong to 
this period. The suppression of Catiline's conspiracy 
had been followed up during the year 62 B.C. by prose- 
cutions directed against his accomplices. Cicero men- 
tions the names of several who were condemned by 



190 Forensic Speeches. [62 B.C. 

the juries and driven into exile — Vargunteius, Laeca, 
Servius Sulla, Cornelius, and Autronius. Autronius, 
along with Publius Sulla, had been unseated for 
bribery after the consular elections in the year 66 
B.C., and he lay under suspicion of having had a 
hand in the supposed " first conspiracy " * of Cati- 
line in the years 66 and 65 B.C. His companion 
Publius Sulla was now brought to the bar on charges 
connected with both conspiracies, and Cicero came 
forward in his defence. Leaving Hortensius to deal 
with the first part of the case, he contented himself 
with rebutting the assertion that Sulla had taken 
any part in the conspiracy of the year 63 B.C. On 
this point Cicero was able to speak from his own 
knowledge, and his exculpation of Sulla was decisive 
with the jury. 

The other speech is of a very different type. The 
Greek poet Archias, Cicero's earliest tutor, was ac- 
cused of having improperly usurped the Roman 
citizenship at the time of the Social War twenty- 
seven years before, and an inquisition was now held 
into his title. Cicero appeared, as in duty bound, 
to speak on behalf of his old friend and teacher. He 
passed lightly over the technical objections urged 
against his client's rights, and dwelt by preference 
on his great fame and merit as a man of letters, 
whose poems, like those of Ennius, had preserved 
the record of the martial deeds of Rome ; " for, if 
any one thinks that more glory is reaped when 
actions are enshrined in Latin poetry than in Greek, 
he is much mistaken ; for the Greek is read in all 

* See above, p. 90. 



61 B.C.] Speech for Archias. 191 

parts of the world, the Latin is confined to the 
bounds of its own country which are narrow by 
comparison. " 

In pleading this cause Cicero begs to be allowed 
to deviate from the beaten track of forensic practice, 
and to speak freely of the glories and delights of 
literature, and of the benefits which he himself owes 
it. He expounds here at the bar of a law-court the 
doctrine which we find so frequently laid down in 
his treatises on the Art of Rhetoric, that the orator 
must be not only a " ready man " but a "full man," 
and that wide reading and deep study are necessary 
for his perfection. " You ask me, why I take such 
an extraordinary delight in this man ? It is because 
he supplies me with a refuge where my mind can 
recruit its powers after the din of the Forum, and 
where my ears tired out with controversy may take 
some repose. Do you think, that a man could find 
the thoughts to express day after day on such a 
variety of topics, unless he cultivated his mind by 
study ? or that the mind could bear the strain, unless 
these same studies supplied him with relaxation ? " * 
Cicero was clearly in no great anxiety about the 
verdict. The jury listened with pleasure to his 
literary disquisition, and confirmed the citizenship 
of Archias. 

Cicero's own writings at this time were chiefly di- 
rected to the history of his consulship. He composed 
a memoir of it in Latin and another in Greek, and he 
promises Atticus a poem on the same subject, " that 



* Pro Arch., 6, 12. 



192 Cicero on his Consulship. [61 B.C. 

I may not omit any form of self-laudation." * A few 
very indifferent verses of the poem survive, amongst 
them the often-quoted 

44 O fortunatam natam me consule Romam,"f 

but the treatises in prose have been entirely lost. 

We possess, however, in Cicero's speeches and 
letters ample specimens of his utterances on the 
achievements of his consulship. He has undoubtedly 
injured his reputation by the undisguised fashion in 
which he glories over his own action. His consul- 
ship was, as Seneca remarked,:}: " non sine causa, sed 
sine fine laudatus." He spoiled a good thing by 
making too much of it, and we get tired, as doubt- 
less did Cicero's contemporaries, of " the great Nones 
of December," with its " inspirations of Providence," 
and its " glorious deed," and its " eternal fame." 

If it be a deadly sin to be thoroughly pleased with 
one's own conduct and to express that pleasure un- 
blushingly, Cicero must stand condemned. But two 
faults, of very different degree of blackness, are liable 
to be confused under the common name of vanity or 
self-conceit. There are men into whose souls the 
poison seems to have eaten deep ; they are pompous, 



* Ad Att. t i. f 19, 10. 

f Mr. Tyrrell renders the jingle — " O happy fate of Rome to date 
Her birthday from my consulate." The reference is to his own title 
of "father of his country." Cicero's enemy, Piso, hit him in a ten- 
der place when he said that Cicero was really banished, not for having 
put Lentulus to death, but for the bad verses he had written on the 
subject. See In Pison., 29, 72. 

J Seneca, De Brevitate Vitce % 5. 



61 B.C.] Cicero s Vanity. 193 

overweening, repellent ; their power of judgment and 
of action is impaired ; they are obstinate because they 
are weak ; they would rather perish than allow them- 
selves to be in the wrong, and they delight in reject- 
ing the counsels of common-sense merely to show 
their own greatness and independence. Sometimes, 
on the other hand, vanity is a mere superficial weak- 
ness, the accompaniment of a light heart, a quick, 
sensitive temperament, an unsuspicious loquacity, 
and an innocent love of display. Carlyle has hit off 
the difference very happily in the contrast which he 
draws between Boswell and his father — " Old Auchin- 
leck had, if not the gay tail-spreading peacock vanity 
of his son, no little of the slow-stalking contentious 
hissing vanity of the gander, a still more fatal 
species." 

Now Cicero's vanity is essentially of the innocuous 
and peacock-like kind. There is no pompous reti- 
cence about him. If he happens to be pleased with 
himself he blurts out his satisfaction with an almost 
childlike simplicity ; if the laugh turns against him, 
he is not wounded or distressed, and on occasion he 
can make fun of himself with perfect grace and good 
humour. Nothing can be happier than the story, as 
told by Cicero, of his own expectations of fame from 
his Sicilian quaestorship, and how he was disabused 
of them. This has been quoted in its place (above, 
p. 23). It is amusing to observe that, when Cicero 
finds himself, four-and-twenty years later, again 
charged with the administration of a province, he 
has just the same admiration for the integrity of his 

own conduct, and expresses that admiration with the 
13 



194 Cicero s Vanity. L61 B.C. 

like naivete and openness.* " In all my life I never 
experienced so much pleasure as I do in the contem- 
plation of my own incorruptibility. It is not so much 
the credit I get for it, though that is immense, as the 
thing itself which delights me. In a word it was 
worth while coming out here ; I did not do myself 
justice, or recognise what I was capable of in this 
line. I do well to be puffed up. Nothing is more 
glorious." Just so with his literary compositions. 
" The passages from my orations which you com- 
mend seemed to me, I assure you, very fine, but I 
did not venture to say so before ; now that they have 
your approval, I think them picked Attic every 
word."f He is particularly pleased with his Greek 
history of his consulship. " I sent my memoir to 
Posidonius, that he might use it as the foundation 
of a more eloquent treatise on the same subject ; but 
he writes back to me from Rhodes that, when he 
read my book, far from being encouraged to write, 
he felt himself fairly warned off the ground. Now 
you see ! I have discomfited the whole tribe of 
Greeks, and so the lot of them, who used to press 
me for material which they might work up, have 
ceased to pester me."| 

With the subject-matter of his treatise he is no 
less delighted, and it never occurs to him for a mo- 
ment that he ought to conceal his delight. It is 
true that in requesting the historian Lucceius to 
take his consulship as the theme for a separate treat- 

* Ad Ait,, v., 20, 6. 
f Ad Att., i., 13, 5. 
%Ad Att ti ii., 1, 2. 



61 B.C.] Cicero s Vanity. 195 

ise, Cicero professes to beg humbly for his en- 
comiums, and pretends to hope that he will owe 
something to the favour of the writer beyond the 
simple requirements of historical truth ; but this is 
merely an affected modesty, suitable to this studied 
and elaborate letter, * which he intended to serve as 
the model of the proper way of making such an ap- 
plication, f In his heart of hearts Cicero believed 
that neither Lucceius nor any one else could praise 
his consulship above its deserts. This comes out 
clearly enough when he is writing to Atticus, with 
whom he has no disguise. After recounting the va- 
rious records, in Greek and Latin, in verse and prose, 
which he has composed on his conflict with Catiline, 
he adds: " Now pray don't object that I am blow- 
ing my own trumpet ; for if there be any human 
action more glorious than mine, I am content that it 
should receive the meed of praise, and that I should 
incur blame for not having chosen the theme of my 
panegyric better — though in truth what I have writ- 
ten is not panegyric but sober history.";}: And a 
little later, when Pompey has soiled his good name 
by his support of Caesar's illegalities, though Cicero 
grieves over the defection of his old leader, he con- 
soles himself with the consideration that the great 
rival of his own fame has thus effaced himself. 

* Ad Fam., v., 12. 

f He directs Atticus to get the letter from Lucceius (doubtless with 
the intention of having it copied), and describes it as " mighty fine " 
(Ad Att %y iv., 6, 4). We may compare the letter (Ad Fam., xii., 17), 
where he sends his " Orator " to Cornificius with the request, " huic 
tu libro maxime velim ex animo ; si minus, gratise causa suffragere." 

% Ad Att. t L, 19, 10, 



196 Cicero and his Family. [61 B.C. 

" Nay, that side of my nature which is vainglorious 
and not indifferent to praise (for it is well to know 
one's own faults), is affected with a certain satisfac- 
tion. For the thought used to vex me that possibly, 
six hundred years hence, the services of our Great 
Bashaw to the nation might appear more eminent 
than my own ; now I am relieved from any such 
anxiety." * Each reader will judge of these utter- 
ances according as his own temperament prompts. 
To me it seems difficult to regard very sternly, or 
to take as a matter for very serious condemnation, a 
weakness so frankly and simply displayed. Cicero's 
vanity and love of praise make him less dignified, 
but they hardly make him less lovable. 

We have still to consider a few points connected 
with Cicero's private life at this period. In the year 
after his consulship he bought from Crassus a mag- 
nificent house on the Palatine, and borrowed money 
freely from his friends for the purpose. His burden 
sat very lightly on him, and it seemed a capital joke 
that he who had so sternly resisted schemes of 
national bankruptcy should now be qualified to 
enlist under another Catiline. " You must know," 
he says,f " that I am so deep in debt that I should 
be quite inclined to join in a conspiracy, if any one 
would have me ; but they all fight shy of me." 

We hear little of Cicero's wife and children at 
this time, but much of his brother Quintus. Quintus 
was praetor in the year 61 B.C., and it was at his bar 
that Cicero delivered the speech for Archias. Towards 

* Ad Att. y ii., 17, 2. 
\AdFam,, v., 6, 2, 



61 B.C.] Atticus and Quintus. 197 

the end of the year he set out to take up the govern- 
ment of the province of Asia. He had wished his 
brother-in-law Atticus to accompany him as legate, 
but this Atticus declined, as he had always declined 
any participation in official life. Quintus considered 
himself slighted at the refusal, and he was likewise 
deeply offended about other matters of which we 
have only obscure hints. It seems probable, how- 
ever, that his wife Pomponia had stirred up ill-will 
between her husband and her brother, for Marcus 
Cicero writes * : " Where the blame for this mis- 
chief lies, I can guess more easily than I can write 
it ; for I am afraid lest in excusing my kinsfolk I 
should he hard on yours. For I judge that the 
breach, if it were not caused by those of his own 
household, might at any rate easily have been healed 
by them." 

Cicero laboured anxiously to reconcile his brother 
and his friend, both equally dear to him. " All my 
hopes of allaying this irritation," he writes to Atticus, f 
" are placed in your kindliness. For if you hold 
with me that the tempers of the best men are often 
easily excited and again as easily quieted down, and 
that this mobility and fluidity, if I may so speak, is 
often the characteristic of a kindly nature, and, 
which is the main point of all, that we ought to bear 
with whatever we find in each other that is inconsid- 
erate or faulty or aggressive, I hope and believe that 
this unpleasantness may easily be got over. I be- 
seech you to do this; for to me, who love you 

*AdAtt., i., 17, 3. 
\AdAtt 9t l % 17,4. 



198 Cicero and Atticus. [60 B.C. 

dearly, it is all in all that there should be no one of 
mine who dislikes you or is disliked by you. . . . 
I have seen, and seen to the bottom, your tender 
interest in all my varying fortunes. Often and often 
I have found your congratulations on my success 
sweet to me, and your support in my hours of anxiety 
most cheering. Now when you are absent, it is not 
only that I miss your counsel, which none can give 
so well, but likewise the interchange of talk which is 
sweeter with you than with any one. I feel the void 
especially — where shall I say especially ? in my call- 
ing as a statesman, which does not admit of a 
moment's neglect? or in my labours at the bar, 
which I once undertook to help me to rise, and which 
I must now keep up to win influence for the support 
of my position ? or lastly in my home circle ? In all 
these, and the more so since my brother has left, I 
long for your presence and conversation. . . . 
You and I have hitherto been too delicate to utter 
all these feelings; but now their expression seems 
to be called for by that part of your letter in which 
you strive to clear yourself from all reproaches and 
to justify yourself and your conduct." 

This letter was written in December, 61 B.C. In the 
following February he refers* again to the same 
topic. " My chief want at present is a man with 
whom to share all my anxieties, one who loves me, 
and has sense, and with whom I can talk without 
pretence or reserve or concealment. For my brother, 
the most open and loving soul in the world, is gone. 
Metellus is not a man, but just a desert island— 

*AdAtt.,\., 18, 1 



60 B.C.] Cicero and A tticus. 199 

shore and sky and utter desolation. And you, who 
have so often by your talk and your counsel taken 
off the burden of my care and disquietude, you who 
are used to be my ally in the affairs of State, and 
the confidant of my private concerns, and the partner 
of all my talk and all my projects, where are you? 
I am so lonely that my only solace is the time I 
spend with my wife and my girl and my sweet little 
Cicero. For as for all these fine friendships of in- 
terest and fashion, they have their glitter before the 
world, but nothing solid to carry home with me. 
And so when my reception rooms are thronged each 
morning, and I go down to the Forum marshalled 
by troops of friends, out of all the crowd I find no 
one to whom I can utter a joke with freedom or 
breathe a sigh in confidence. Thus I wait for you 
and long for you ; nay, more, now I summon you 
to my side ; for there are many troubles and anxieties 
of which I think I could rid my bosom, if I might 
only pour them into your ear in the course of a single 
walk." 

It is pleasant to know that Atticus was not dull to 
the affection so heartily lavished on him, and that 
no cloud was suffered to come between the friends. 
The answer of Atticus was all that Cicero could 
desire. " I am glad," Cicero writes in reply, * " that 
you understand the value which I set on you, and I 
am beyond measure rejoiced that in those matters in 
which our family has, as it seems to me, treated you 
ungently and inconsiderately, you have acted with 
such patience ; and I esteem this as the sign of a 

* Ad Att. t i., 20, I. 



200 Cicero and A tticus. [60 B.C. 

perfect affection and of a large-hearted wisdom. You 
write about the matter with such gentleness, such 
reasonableness, such delicacy and such kindliness, 
that far from having occasion to urge you further, I 
can only say that I could never have looked for so 
much placability and tenderness from you or from 
any one in the world. I think that the most suita- 
ble course will be to drop the subject altogether for 
the present ; when we meet, we can, if desirable, 
talk the matter over together." 





ANCIENT ROMAN AS. 
{Babelon.) 



June, 60 B.C. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE. 
60-59 B - c - 

^ESAR had well employed the 
time of his absence in Spain, 
and he came back, 
as Cicero said, 
" with a marvellous fair wind 
in his sails." In the first place 
he had freed himself from the 
most pressing of his money 
difficulties ; he " had wanted," 
so he said, " a million sterling * 
to be worth nothing," and now he was able to look 
his creditors in the face. Notwithstanding his great 
gains, he brought back the reputation of a good 
provincial governor. Above all he had served with 
success his apprenticeship as a general. To himself 
the secret, that he had a genius for the art of war, 
was no doubt already revealed, and the conscious- 
ness of this power determined the path which he 
marked out. Even in the eyes of the world his 
Victories over revolted Spanish tribes were such as 

* Twenty-five million drachmas, Appian, Bell, Civ. t ii., 8. 

301 




202 The First Triumvirate. [60 B.C. 

fairly to entitle him to a triumph, and to confirm the 
inclination of the voters to raise the most popular 
of the Nobles at once to the consulship. 

The triumph he was obliged to forego, owing to 
the spiteful interposition of Cato, who obstructed * 
a dispensation which the Senate would have granted, 
and compelled Caesar to forfeit his command by 
coming within the walls to sue for the consulship. 
This however was a small matter. Caesar was duly 
elected consul for the next year, 59 B.C., having for 
his colleague Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who was 
the brother-in-law of Cato, and a vehement partisan 
of the oligarchy. 

In anticipation of Caesar's success the Senate, 
when assigning provinces for the consuls of 59 B.C., 
had chosen trivial and obscure spheres of admin- 
istration. Caesar did not intend to be thus set aside. 
He was determined to have a great provincial com- 
mand, and the control of a powerful army ; and to 
gain this object he set himself to combine all the 
powers which were at the moment in a state of 
alienation from the Senate. 

He could count on the support of his old ally 
Crassus ; and though Pompey and Crassus were 
generally on bad terms, he did not despair of 
uniting them. To Crassus he could point out how 
necessary it was for the fortunes of the democratic 
party that Pompey should be estranged once for all 
from the Senate ; and as for Pompey himself, the 
insults and provocations to which he had been sub- 
jected for the last eighteen months, and the embar- 

* Plutarch, Cato Minor \ 31, 3. 



60 B.C.] Overtures to Cicero. 203 

rassments of his present position, rendered him very 
open to the offers which Caesar was prepared to 
make. If the three could agree on common action, 
they might hope to overbear all opposition, and this 
hope would be almost a certainty if the adherence 
of Cicero could likewise be secured. His presence 
in the coalition would disarm the hostility of the 
middle class and of the country people of Italy, 
his character would give respectability to the new 
party, and his eloquence would sway public opinion 
to its side. 

Caesars first scheme then was for a quattuorvirate, 
consisting of himself, Pompey, Crassus, and Cicero. 
This project was not, of course, openly proclaimed 
at the time ; but four years later Cicero publicly an- 
nounced the fact. " Caesar," he says,* " wished me 
to be one of three consulars most intimately allied 
with himself. . . . He showed, and I was not 
insensible to it, how friendly his intentions were, 
when he offered me a place side by side with the 
foremost of all the citizens, his own son-in-law/' 
About the same time (56 B.C.) we find Cicero, in a 
confidential letter to Atticus, f lamenting that he, 
who had refused to be one of the masters in the co- 
alition, should now be reduced to act as its servant. 

Caesar had probably made some tentative advances 
even before his arrival in Rome, for, as we saw in the 
last chapter (p. 188), Cicero expressed 
so early as the beginning of June the 
hope that he could bring Caesar to a better mind. 

* De Prov. Cons., 17, 41. 
f See below, p. 269. 



204 The First Triumvirate. [60 B.C. 

Though Caesar failed in this portion of his scheme, 
it does not follow that his expectations were ir- 
rational or impossible of fulfilment. Cicero had 
throughout his life acted with the equestrian or- 
der, and that order was now estranged from the 
Senate. He had from the first chosen Pompey as 
his leader, and after the temporary coolness, caused 
by the events of his consulship, he and Pompey had 
again drawn closely together. The Nobles on the 
other hand had rejected Cicero's latest counsels. It 
was well worth trying whether he might not be in- 
duced to follow Pompey and the Knights in their 
quest of new allies. Between the time of his elec- 
tion to the consulship and his entry on office Caesar 
made serious overtures, which will best be described 
in Cicero's own words * : " They say that Caesar 
looks for my support and has no doubt whatever 
that he will get it. For Cornelius came to see me 
just now, Cornelius Balbus I mean, Caesar's confi- 
dential agent. He assures me that Caesar will in all 
matters act under the advice of Pompey and myself, 
and that he will exert himself to unite Pompey and 
Crassus. To accept this proposal offers many advan- 
tages : an intimate alliance with Pompey, and, since 
it comes to that, with Caesar too ; reconciliation with 
my enemies, peace with the multitude, quiet for my 
old age." On the other side is the conviction that 
to enter on this new alliance will be to throw up the 
" good cause " and to derogate from the glories of his 
consulship. He supports this good resolution by 
some bad verses from his own poem, and concludes 
*AdAtt., ii., 3, 3. 



60 B.C.] Cczsars Offer. 205 

that his duty to his country obliges him to abide 
fast by his principles. That this resolve was final, is 
clear from one of the early letters of the next year,* 
in which he says : " Meantime I pursue my studies 
with a mind quiet, and even cheerful and contented ; 
for it never occurs to me to envy Crassus, or to regret 
that I did not prove false to myself." 

It may be doubted, even if Caesar had gained Cice- 
ro's adhesion, whether he could so far have modified 
his own course of action as to keep the union unim- 
paired. The presence of an ally who objected to 
breaking the law would have seriously hampered his 
proceedings. In seeking Cicero's support, he must 
either have hoped that this support would enable 
him to carry out his projects by milder means, or 
else he must have calculated that Cicero, once com- 
mitted to his party, would have been unable to shake 
himself loose, and would have been drawn along 
wherever it suited Caesar to carry him. 

As it was, Cicero stood aloof ; the coalition was 
organised as a triumvirate, and Caesar went on his 
way unchecked by any scruples. His plan was at 
once simple and effective. He knew exactly what 
he wanted, and was prepared to pay the price. Let 
his confederates give him an extraordinary command 
for a term of years of a province and an army, and 
he will undertake to secure for them anything else 
which they desire. All that they had been vainly 
striving to obtain for the last two years was to be 
theirs at once. Pompey was to have his acts in Asia 
confirmed, and his soldiers were to get their lands; 

*AdAtt. % ii. t 4, 2. 



206 The First Triumvirate. [60 B.C. 

the populace of the capital was likewise to be pro- 
vided for in an agrarian law ; the equestrian order, 
the clients of Crassus, were to have their Asiatic con- 
tract revised, and were to hear nothing more about 
prosecutions for judicial corruption. In case these 
objects could not be gained by legal methods, Caesar 
promised to accomplish them in spite of law and con- 
stitution. It followed of course that his allies must 
not be critical of the means employed ; he would 
take all the responsibility of carrying his measures, 
but they must be prepared to support whatever he 
did. 

On these terms the great conspiracy, known to 
history as the " First Triumvirate " was formed. 
Crassus, when once the initial difficulty of reconcilia- 
tion with Pompey was overcome, was not likely to 
find anything objectionable in the conditions; but 
the case was different with Pompey. How could 
any price tempt Pompey to put another man in 
possession of just such a commanding military posi- 
tion as he had himself enjoyed three years before? 
Pompey must have recollected afterwards with bitter 
repentance that, if he could only have possessed his 
integrity in patience for a few months longer, all 
would have been well. The migration of the Hel- 
vetii and the passage of Ariovistus into Gaul would 
have certainly created a situation calling for his 
intervention, if he had not already placed Caesar in a 
position to deal with it. The explanation of Pom- 
pey's acquiescence doubtless is, that he had no idea 
that he was dealing with a man of military genius 
equal or superior to his own. Up to the age of forty 



60 B.c.i Consent of Pompey. 207 

Caesar, though he had shown distinguished bravery 
in his youth, had never been in command of troops ; 
he was famous as a politician and party leader, but 
quite unknown as a soldier. Just now indeed he had 
supplemented his record by a single year's command 
in Spain; but to the veteran warrior this would seem 
a very insufficient training, and Caesar's achievements, 
though creditable to him as an officer, were not such 
as to undeceive Pompey respecting his powers. There 
was then, as yet, little reason to fear a serious rivalry 
on this ground ; and Caesar was able to represent his 
province and his army merely as a reserve force, on 
which his partners at home might fall back in case 
of necessity. 

Other scruples however must have suggested them- 
selves. Pompey had declined the despotism which 
was within his reach, and had refused to violate his 
duty to the State in his own interest ; and now he 
was asked to abandon the character of a loyal repub- 
lican, and to give his sanction to illegal action and 
violent breaches of the constitution. It seems prob- 
able that he was too short-sighted to perceive clearly 
the treasonable nature of his compact with Caesar, 
and that he salved his conscience by disclaiming 
responsibility for whatever he could not approve. 
The bargain once struck, Pompey was no longer a 
free man. He had reaped the benefit of Caesar's 
illegalities, and could not refuse to support them in 
all their consequences ; and so we shall find him 
during the ensuing years compelled in spite of mis- 
givings to do Caesar's work for him, and unable to 
break with him until Caesar has made himself too 



208 The First Triumvirate. [60 B.C. 

strong to be safely resisted. Cicero afterwards * re- 
marked with truth that, as the day of the battle of 
Allia, not that on which the Gauls entered Rome, 
was marked as the black day in the Roman Calen- 
dar, so this compact should be regarded as the fatal 
epoch, rather than the Civil War which was merely 
its sequel. 

Meantime the temptation of Caesar's offers was too 
strong for Pompey. He must have suffered keenly 
during the months in which he had been worried 
and thwarted by the senseless and ungrateful oppo- 
sition of the Nobles, and now his patience was worn 
out, and, come what might, he was resolved to be 
even with the pack of them and to carry his measures 
in their despite. Pompey 's surrender dealt a fatal 
blow to Cicero's ideal party, and indeed to Cicero's 
position as an independent statesman. For the next 
eight years we shall find Roman politics dominated 
by the coalition, and when that coalition breaks up all 
controversies have to be decided on the battle-field. 
Cicero becomes almost powerless, and his statesman- 
ship suffers an eclipse, from which it fully emerges 
only after Caesar's death. 

Caesar entered on his consulship on the 1st of Jan- 
uary, 59, and at once proceeded to carry out the 
engagements into which he had entered. 
January' Of ^ e k^ s w hich he announced only one 
was of the nature of a legislative reform. 
This was the " Lex Julia Repetundarum " which 
consolidated and amended the laws against extor- 
tion in the provinces. His other proposals were 

* Ad Att. t ix., 5, 2. 



59 B.C.] Ccesars Consulship. 209 

strictly party measures. He brought in a bill for 
the purchase of lands, alike for Pompey's veterans 
and for the fathers of large families among the poorer 
citizens. He proposed another bill for the confir- 
mation of Pompey's acts in Asia, and a third remit- 
ting part of the sum which the tax-farmers had agreed 
to pay to the Treasury. At the same time he con- 
trived an ingenious scheme to provide himself and 
his confederates with money. It will be remembered 
that the title of the present ruler of Egypt was de- 
fective, and that Rome had claims on the country 
under the Will of the late king (see page 102). For 
twenty-two years Roman statesmen had failed to 
make up their minds whether they should annex 
Egypt or not. Caesar and Crassus, who had been 
for annexation six years before, now looked to the 
North rather than to the East for their provincial 
base of operations, and were disposed to utilise 
Egypt in another way. It was therefore resolved to 
procure a decree of the people, recognising Ptolemy 
Auletes as king, and for this service Ptolemy paid 
the triumvirs a bribe of 6000 talents, about a million 
and a half sterling.* The prize which Caesar had 
marked for himself, the command for five years in 
Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, was to be bestowed 
not by a law of his own proposing but by one brought 
in by the tribune Vatinius. 

Caesar at first affected to act with moderation. He 
submitted all his bills to the Senate, and in the case 
of the Agrarian Law in particular he declared himself 
ready and willing to listen to argument and to accept 

* Suetonius, JuL % 54. 



210 The First Triumvirate. [62 B.C. 

amendments. It was not likely, however, that the 
Senate would, except under compulsion, grant to 
Caesar what they had refused the year before to Pom- 
pey and Cicero. Accordingly a bitter opposition 
was raised to the measure in the Senate. Cato in 
particular spoke at such length and with such viru- 
lence, that Caesar ordered him to be arrested for con- 
tempt. Like Metellus the year before, Cato would 
not appeal for protection to a tribune, and he was 
marched off by the lictors continuing his speech as 
he walked towards the prison, while the senators 
rose from their places to accompany him to his con- 
finement. This did not suit the plans of the consul, 
and he sent word to one of his own tribunes to inter- 
pose and release the prisoner. 

The obstinate opposition to Caesar's measures gave 
him, however, an excuse for declaring that no fair 
treatment could be got from the Senate, and that he 
should therefore cease to consult it and should bring 
his bills direct before the People. It has been ex- 
plained in the second chapter (p. 27) how such an 
action on the part of a magistrate was a breach of 
constitutional order, and how it could not be carried 
through to the end without an actual violation of 
the law. Caesar had complete command of the 
streets, and could easily provide an assembly to say 
" aye " to his proposals, if only his power of initia- 
ting them were unimpeded. But this power of initia- 
tive was subject to the veto of his colleague and of 
the tribunes. Of the tribunes some were little more 
than his own servants, but there were also some 
ready to obey with equal promptitude the orders of 



60 B.C.] Ccesars Consulship. 211 

the Senate. Bibulus accompanied by two tribunes 
appeared in the Forum on the day appointed for the 
voting on the Agrarian Law, and in due order vetoed 
the bill. This rendered all further proceedings un- 
lawful. But Caesar set law at defiance ; his mob 
drove Bibulus and the tribunes with blows from 
the spot,* and he then submitted his proposal to the 
assembly and declared it to be carried. A bill so 
passed was, of course, invalid, and could only be 
sustained, even as it had been enacted, by the strong 
hand. 

It was now clear that the personal interposition of the 
veto could be made only at the peril of the life of the 
intervening magistrate, and Bibulus was not inclined 
to face the risk again. But the constitution allowed 
the exercise of the veto in a more convenient form, 
namely by the allegation of religious obstacles to the 
business. At this period the religious, no less than 
the civil, veto was an essential part of the constitu- 
tion, and the conditions under which it might be ap- 
plied were strictly regulated by the law. 

The antiquarian history of this religious veto is 
curious and interesting, f The desire to ascertain be- 
forehand what is the pleasure of the gods, forms 
only a secondary motive in Roman augury ; the 
primary object is to win the luck to your side, to 
avoid anything unchancy, to catch up and appro- 
priate any word or sight which may have a happy 
significance. The Romans were full of contrivances 
for manufacturing good luck. Like Balak, if the 

* Dio Cassius, xxxviii., 6. 

f See Mommsen Staals-recht, i., p. 77 et seq. 



212 The First Triumvirate. [60 B.C. 

first sacrifice turned out unpropitious, they tried 
another, and continued the process until they found 
what they wanted. They starved the sacred chickens 
to make sure of their feeding, and then gave them 
porridge to eat, so that some of the food should drop 
from their beaks, which was esteemed a particularly 
happy augury. An omen again was held to be sig- 
nificant, not as it occurred in nature, but as it caught 
the attention of the person concerned, and this doc- 
trine admitted of many developments. If anything 
happened which it was inconvenient for the magis- 
trate to see, he might refuse to notice it ; much as 
Nelson put the telescope to his blind eye to look for 
the signal ordering him to retreat. The Marcellus 
of the Second Punic War, an excellent augur, as 
Cicero tells us,* always went in a closed litter when 
he meant to give battle, and so escaped the chance 
of seeing anything unlucky. Again, if an attendant 
falsely reported an omen to the magistrate, the 
magistrate might accept it as reported. The attend- 
ant indeed took the curse of the falsehood on his 
own head f ; but it was not difficult to find persons 
willing thus to purchase to themselves damnation in 
the way of their calling. 

Now the Roman magistrate, entering on any official 
business, was accustomed to consecrate that busi- 
ness by the previous consultation of the auspices. 
The omen which was most desired was a flash of 
lightning on the left hand, and this was at once ob« 

* De Divin^ ii., 36, 77. 

f Those who wish to see this doctrine illustrated by an amusing 
story may look at Livy, x. , 40. 



59 B.C.] Roman Augttry* 213 

tained by asking the attendant if he saw such a flash 
and receiving his answer in the affirmative. This 
was technically termed servare de ccelo " to observe 
something (i. e. lightning) coming from the sky." 
But this omen, so good in itself, might be used as an 
obstruction to other business. A thunderstorm oc- 
curring during a meeting of the People was unlucky 
and broke up the assembly ; and accordingly the 
flash of lightning, which the magistrate was supposed 
to have seen, arrested all legislation for the day. To 
avoid this inconvenience the consul, when he fixed a 
day for the assembly of the People, used to issue an 
edict forbidding any inferior magistrate to look for 
lightning for any purpose of his own on that day. 
Such a prohibition was, however, of no avail against 
the consul's colleague or against the tribunes of the 
plebs, who were not bound to obey his orders. The 
duties and powers of the magistrates in this matter 
were accurately fixed for them by the Law of yElius 
and Fufius (circ. 150 B.C.). By this law every magis- 
trate holding an assembly of the People was for- 
bidden to ignore any omen officially reported to him 
by his colleague, and every magistrate who had the 
right to " observe lightning " for his own purposes, 
might cause the same to be reported as a deterrent 
omen for his colleague who was proposing a bill to 
the People. Such a report rendered all proceedings 
by the assembly null and void. It is manifest that 
any sincere religious feeling on the subject, which 
may once have existed, must have died out before 
this cut-and-dried procedure was ordained. The 
regulation must be regarded not as a piece of super- 



214 The First Triumvirate. [59 B.C. 

stition, but as a portion of constitutional law. It 
was a machinery contrived to extend the power of 
veto (for under this form it might be used by the 
consul even against a tribune), and to make its appli- 
cation more easy and convenient. 

Driven by armed force from the Forum, Bibulus now 
resorted to this method. He shut himself up in his 
house, and on every day when the people assembled 
he " saw lightning " and caused an official intima- 
tion of it to be sent to Caesar.* Caesar systemati- 
cally ignored the prohibition and passed his measures 
one by one. He thereby broke the law, and usurped 
powers which were not his. As consul he had the 
legal right to propose measures to the people, but 
only provided that his initiative was not lawfully 
impeded. His colleague had an absolute right to 
forbid him. The whole business of the lightning 
was indeed a constitutional fiction, and absurd 
enough in itself ; but it was not more absurd 
than the other fiction,f that by reading a bill to 
the handful of partisans whom he could collect in 
the Forum, Caesar had obtained the sanction of the 
nine hundred thousand Roman citizens who were 
scattered through Italy. Bibulus effected his pur- 
pose, so far as this, that he established abundant 
and valid grounds for hereafter setting aside the laws 
of Caesar, if ever the constitutional party should 
again become strong enough to insist on its rights. 

The moment that Caesar received his governor- 
ship of Cisalpine Gaul, which legally commenced on 

* Dio Cassius, xxxviii., 6, 5. 
\ See above, p. 26. 



59 B.C.] Ccesar and Pompey. 215 

the 1st of March of his consulship, he hurried on 
the enlistment of troops, so that he soon had an 
armed force collected at the gates of Rome. Many 
of Pompey's veterans were likewise invited to the 
city to support the measures in which their gen- 
eral was interested. Caesar, under the pretence that 
violence was likely to be used against him, had pub- 
licly appealed to Pompey for assistance, and Pompey 
had solemnly replied that, if the opponents of the 
consul ventured to draw the sword, he would provide 
both shield and sword in his defence.* Meanwhile 
he indulged himself in his favourite weakness of 
disclaiming responsibility. Every one knew that 
Caesar's measures were carried in the interest of 
Pompey, and that Caesar would have been powerless 
without Pompey's support. Nevertheless, " he takes 
refuge in quibbles of this sort. He approves the 
substance of Caesar's laws, but Caesar himself is to 
answer for his procedure. The Agrarian Law was 
quite to his mind ; whether or no it could be vetoed 
is no business of his. He was glad that the Egyp- 
tian question should be settled at last ; whether or 
not Bibulus observed lightning on that occasion, it 
was not for him to inquire. As for the tax-farmers, 
he was willing to oblige that order ; what would be 
the result of Bibulus coming down to the Forum he 
could not have predicted." f 

Cicero had declined any partnership with Caesar, 
but it was not yet clear whether he would venture 
on active opposition. Caesar was resolved to hold 

* Plutarch, Pomp., 47, 5. 
f Ad Att., ii., 16, 2. 



216 The First Triumvirate. [59 B.C. 

him in check, and to accomplish this he possessed an 
effective instrument. We have seen that Clodius 
had an old grudge against Cicero, and an old debt of 
gratitude to Caesar and Crassus. He would be de- 
lighted to wipe off both scores at once, and to inflict 
punishment on Cicero, nominally for having put the 
Catilinarian conspirators to death, really for not being 
sufficiently submissive to the triumvirs. To deliver 
this attack it was necessary that Clodius should be- 
come tribune of the plebs, but he was debarred from 
the office by his patrician birth. The obstacle might 
be removed by his adoption into a plebeian family, 
and such adoptions were in the control of Caesar as 
Pontifex Maximus. Caesar was prepared to use this 
control according as Cicero behaved. 

This question was decided early in the year, 
probably during the month of March. 
Caius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in 
his consulship, who had since grossly misconducted 
himself in his province of Macedonia, was put on his 
trial, not only, as was reasonable, for extortion, but 
on the charge of complicity in the Catilinarian con- 
spiracy. Cicero was counsel for the defence, and, as 
he himself tells us,* " uttered in the course of my 
speech some complaints regarding the present state 
of the nation, which seemed to me to bear on the 
case of my unfortunate client/' This was at noon, 
and Cicero's remarks were forthwith reported (in an 
exaggerated form, he says) to the consul. Caesar 
accepted the words as evidence that Cicero meant 
to throw in his lot with the opposition, and he in- 

* Pro Domo^ 16, 41. 



59 B.C.] Adoption of Clodius. 217 

stantly took up the challenge. At three o'clock the 
same afternoon Clodius was transferred to the plebs. 
Pompey officiated as augur on the occasion. He 
took the precaution indeed of exacting from Clodius 
and his brother Appius a solemn engagement that 
they would make no attack on Cicero ; but Clodius' 
promises were notoriously worthless, and Clodius 
was ready to make any number of them that might 
be desired, if only Pompey would put him in a 
position in which he would have the power to break 
them. 

Soon after receiving this significant warning Cicero 
retired into the country, where he spent the months 
of April and May. The tone of his letters to Atticus 
is at first more careless and cheerful than might have 
been expected. He was convinced, and not without 
reason, that the high-handed proceedings of the tri- 
umvirs must set public opinion against them,* and 
that dissensions must arise even amongst their own 
followers. He forgot for the moment that the tri- 
umvirs were resolved to rule by force, and that with 
force on their side they could afford to ignore public 
opinion. The country-people, as was natural, were 
disgusted with the doings in the capital. " You 
write that at Rome there is dead silence ; so I sup- 
posed ; but here in the fields men are by no means 
silent ; the very fields themselves rebel against your 
tyranny. If you come to this ' far Laestrygonia ' — to 
Formiae, I mean — you will see how men chafe under 
it, how indignant they grow, how they detest our 
friend the Great One. His surname will soon be as 



*AdAtt. % ii.,9, 2. 



218 The First Triumvirate. [59 B.C. 

much out of date as that of Crassus the Rich.* 
Trust me, I have not met a single man who takes 
these things so quietly as I do myself." f 

After the rejection of his own policy, Cicero had 
good reason to be sick of public life, and he seems 
to have contemplated with satisfaction a complete 
retirement. " I was weary of piloting the State, 
even while I was allowed to do so ; and now that I 
have been turned out of the boat, and have not 
abandoned the helm but have had it wrenched out 
of my hand, I had rather watch their ship-wreck 
from the shore, and as your friend Sophocles says — 

4 Beneath my roof-tree list with drowsy sense 
The plashing of the rain.' " % 

At one time Cicero fancied that the triumvirs 

would offer him a mission to Egypt, but though he 

liked the prospect, he felt that he could 

April, 59 B.C. r r ' ' . ■ 

not accept the offer at their hands. In 
the same letter he inquires, § who is to have the 
vacant augurship, and adds, " that is the only bait 
with which they could catch me. Observe my 
venality. But why do I talk of these things, when all 
I want is to get rid of them and to devote my whole 
mind to philosophy ? That, I say, is my intention, 
and I only wish I had done so from the first." Of 
course this hankering after the augurship is only a 
momentary whim, which goes down, as does every 

* This is not the triumvir, but another person of the name who had 
fallen from great wealth to bankruptcy. 
+ Ad Att., ii., 13, 2. 
%AdAtt. % ii., 7, 4. 
% Ad Att., ii., 5. 



59 B.C.] Cicero s Fears. 219 

passing thought, on paper to his friend. If Cicero 
had been seriously willing to sell his services for any 
such price, Caesar would gladly have paid it twenty 
times over.* 

In the month of May, Cicero began to be more 
anxious. He was alarmed by Pompey's marriage 
with Caesar's daughter Julia, and by a fresh agrarian 
proposal, under which the Campanian land, expressly 
exempted from the former law, was destined for 
distribution. " These things," he writes,f " are 
bad enough in themselves, but they cannot be 
meant to stop here. For what have these people 
gained by them as yet ? They would never have 
gone so far, except to pave the way for further 
abominations." 

From the month of June onwards Cicero is again 
in Rome, and his letters to Atticus (who has now 
retired to his estate in Epirus) give a lively picture 
of the situation. The triumvirs are absolute masters, 
but they are likewise the objects of universal hatred. 
" Speech is a little freer than it was, at least when 
people converse together in public places, or at dinner. 
Indignation begins to overpower fear.";}; Things are 
really much worse than before, because men have 
lost patience. " The poison administered at first was 
so slow in working that I thought we might have a 
painless extinction ; now I fear that the hisses of 
the Commons, the plain-speaking of decent folk, and 



* Cicero afterwards tells Cato (AdFam., xv., 4, 13), with apparent 
reference to this time, that he could have had the augurship if he had 
pressed for it. 

f Ad Att> y ii., 17, I. % Ad Att. t ii., 18, 2. 



220 The First Trmmvirate. [59 B.C. 

the indignation of Italy will stir them up to violence. "* 
Bibulus' edicts, full of invective against Pompey and 
Caesar were eagerly welcomed ; " there is a block in 
the street, where they are posted up, from the num- 
bers who stand to read them. They cut Pompey to 
the heart, so that he is vilely fallen away with fretting ; 
and to myself they are, I confess, unpleasing, both 
because they give too much pain to one for whom I 
have always had a regard, and because I fear lest a 
man of his stubborn nature, who is so used to wear 
his hand on his sword-hilt and so unaccustomed to 
listen to abuse, should abandon himself to the dic- 
tates of vexation and displeasure."f Cicero tells us 
in the same letter that he could not restrain his tears 
at sight of the abject figure which Pompey made, 
when in face of a hostile audience he tried to defend 
himself against these attacks at a public meeting. 
" It was a sight to please Crassus . . . for my- 
self I felt as Apelles or Protogenes might feel if they 
saw their masterpieces dragged in the dirt." 

At the games the young Curio, who had been 
bolder than others in his opposition, was heartily 
cheered alike by the equestrian benches and by 
the people, while Caesar himself was received in dead 
silence. The audience caught up every line in the 
play which could be applied against their masters. 

11 The time shall come when thou shalt rue his valour," 

and 

" If neither law nor duty can restrain you," 

* Ad Att. y ii., 21, I. 
\ Ad Att. % ii., 21, 4. 



59 B.C.] Ccesar and the Senate. 221 

were received with rounds of applause, and the actor 
Diphilus was rapturously encored, when he turned on 
Pompey with the words — 

" By our misery thou art Great." * 

To Caesar all this signified little ; indeed it was so 
far to his advantage that the unpopularity of Pompey 
made him the less able to dispense with his allies. 
Caesar had now ample force at his command, and all 
else was indifferent to him ; think what they might, 
Caesar could rig an assembly to vote whatever he 
should please. This was indeed so evident that the 
Senate at his request added Transalpine Gaul to his 
province in order to prevent that too being given 
away over their heads by decree of the People.f 
When his year of office was over, Caesar ventured to 
give a yet more striking proof of the lengths to which 
he could go with the Senate. Two of the new 
praetors foolishly brought the question of the validity 
of Caesar's acts before the House. Law and right 
were absolutely on their side ; but force was not. 
Caesar accepted the challenge, and with a feigned 
courtesy begged the Senate to decide the question 
once for all under the eyes of his soldiers. The 
Senate was, of course, helpless, and could only evade 
a formal surrender by ignominiously declining to 
entertain the question.;}; While he could thus 
trample the Senate under foot, it was not likely that 
Caesar should trouble himself about any other un- 

* Ad Atl. y ii., 19, 3. 

f Dio Cassius, xxxviii., 8, 4, confirmed by Cicero, De Prov. Cons., 
15, 36. 
X Suetonius, Jul., 23. 



222 The First Triumvirate. [59 B.C. 

armed members of the commonwealth. The only 
notice which he took of the demonstrations in the 
theatre was to hint to the Knights that, unless they 
behaved themselves, he would take away their re- 
served seats, and to the populace that, if they hissed 
the wrong men, he would cut off the distribution of 
corn.* Pompey on the other hand felt his conscience 
uneasy and his position awkward. " I must inform 
you,"f Cicero writes to Atticus about the month of 
August, " that our friend, the Great 
Bashaw, is heartily sick of the state of 
affairs and is anxious to recover the position from 
which he has fallen ; he confides his distress to me 
and openly begs me to suggest a remedy, which for 
my part I am wholly unable to do." 

Meanwhile the triumvirs made their arrangements 
for the magistracies of the next year. They put 
into the consulship Pompey's old adherent Gabinius, 
and along with him Piso, whose daughter Calpurnia 
was lately married to Caesar. At the same time 
Clodius was elected tribune. Since his adoption he 
had been playing strange pranks. In the month of 
April we find him announcing that he will stand for 
the tribuneship as an opponent of the triumvirs and 
with the intention of cancelling Caesar's laws. " In 
that case," retorted the chief pontiff and the officiat- 
ing augur, " we shall deny that we ever made a ple- 
beian of you.";j: His sister Clodia, the terrible 
beauty of Rome, with whom Atticus was on very 

* Ad Att., ii., 19, 3. 
f Ad Att, y ii., 23, 2. 
\ Ad Att. , ii., 12, I. 



59 B.C.] Cicero s Opposition. 223 

intimate terms, assured Cicero's friend that she was 
urging her brother on this new course,* but it is not 
clear that she told Atticus the truth. In any case this 
quarrel was soon patched up, and before Clodius was 
elected tribune he and Caesar were again fast friends. 
He now openly announced that he intended to attack 
Cicero, and Pompey as vehemently protested that 
he would allow no such thing. " He declares that 
there is no danger ; he takes his oath to it ; he adds 
that Clodius will have to pass over his dead body 
before he shall do me any harm." f And again : 
" It would be an everlasting disgrace to him, he says, 
if any mischief came to me, through the man into 
whose hands he placed a weapon of offence, when he 
allowed him to become a plebeian. " \ 

Caesar however had otherwise determined. From 
the time when he returned from Spain to the end of 
his life, it was a principle of Caesar's policy that 
Cicero must be brought over to his side. Sometimes 
he tries to attract him by friendly offers and delicate 
acts of kindness, sometimes to drive him by well- 
directed strokes of chastisement. The means em- 
ployed might differ, but in pursuit of the end Caesar 
never wearied ; he knew full well that the great orator 
must be either a useful ally or a dangerous enemy, 
and that he could not afford to neglect him. In the 
present crisis he was prepared to employ either 
method as occasion might serve. For the moment 
he held Clodius in leash, but he made it clear that 

* Ad Att., ii., 9, 1. 
\AdAtt. y ii., 20, 2. 
\ Ad Att.^ ii., 22, 2. 



224 The First Triumvirate. [59 B.C. 

he was to be slipped on his prey, unless Cicero gave 
sufficient guarantees that he had abandoned his op- 
position to the triumvirs. That Cicero should now 
have a voice in the counsels of the confederates, was 
of course out of the question ; but he might still, if 
he pleased, receive protection from them as the price 
of his silence. So far as outward position went, 
Caesar's offers were meant to be honourable and 
complimentary to Cicero ; and in after times Caesar 
unhesitatingly appealed to them as evidence of his 
good-will. Ten years later Cicero writes*: "When 
he is justifying his conduct, he always throws on me 
the blame for the occurrences of that time ; I was so 
bitter against him, he says, that I would not accept 
even honours from his hand/' But these honours 
would effectually have closed Cicero's mouth. He 
was offered either a vacant place on the board of com- 
missioners for executing Caesar's Agrarian Law, or 
else the post of Caesar's lieutenant in Gaul. Finally 
he was allowed the option of simple retirement by 
the acceptance of an honorary commission, which 
would have removed him for a year from Italy. 

All these offers Cicero declined. He claimed com- 
plete freedom of action, and thought himself strong 
enough to face the attack of Clodius unaided. " I 
am now bearing myself," he writes in the autumn,f 
" so that every day increases my forces and the good- 
will with which I am supported. I let politics alone, 
and work with all my might in my old field of labour, 
the law-courts. I find that this is favourably re- 

* Ad Att., ix., 2, b. I. 
f Ad Att., ii., 22, 3. 



69 B .C] Speech for Flaccus. 225 

garded not only by my clients but by the public. 
My house is thronged, crowds come to greet me, 
the memory of my consulship is revived ; I am 
promised support, and I have raised my hopes, till I 
sometimes think that the struggle which lies before 
me is a thing to be welcomed. " 

Cicero's efforts to fortify his position by speeches 
at the bar may receive illustration from his success- 
ful defence of Lucius Flaccus, the only 
oration of this year which has been pre- 
served to us. Flaccus, now accused of extortion 
in his province of Asia, had been praetor in 63 B.C., 
and was one of the two who arrested the Allobroges 
on the Mulvian Bridge. Cicero speaks in his behalf, 
as if the prosecution were directed against himself 
and all his coadjutors in the suppression of the 
conspiracy. 

"Caius Antonius has been overwhelmed. Be it 
so ; he had his faults ; yet even he would never, if I 
may be allowed to say as much, have been found 
guilty by such a jury as that to which I speak to- 
day. On his condemnation the tomb of Lucius 
Catilina was wreathed with flowers ; abandoned men 
and traitors to the State thronged to the spot and 
feasted there ; Catiline's ghost had its due. Now 
you are asked to wreak on Flaccus vengeance for 
Lentulus. How can you find a victim more sweet 
for Publius Lentulus, that Lentulus who tried to 
slaughter you in the arms of your wives and children 
and to bury you beneath the ashes of our country, 
than by sating with the blood of Lucius Flaccus that 
bitter hatred which he had for all of us. Let us 
15 



226 The First Triumvirate. [59 B.C. 

perform then an expiatory sacrifice for Lentulus, let 
us appease the shade of Cethegus, let us call back 
their associates from banishment. Let us, if so it 
must be, in our turn bear the punishment due to too 
exact a loyalty and to an excessive love of our 
country. For it is we who are now named by in- 
formers, against us charges are invented, for us 
perils are afoot. . . . Well, we see now clearly 
enough the mind and will of the Roman People. In 
every way which is open to it the Roman People 
makes it clear what it thinks ; there is no difference 
of opinion or of wish or of utterance. So if any man 
summons me to that bar, here I am. I do not refuse 
the Roman People for judge in this quarrel, nay I 
claim its decision. Only let force be absent, let 
swords and stones be kept out of the way, let the 
hired gangs depart, let the slaves be silent. No one 
who hears me, if he be but a citizen and a freeman, 
will be so unfair as not to judge that the question is 
not of punishment for me, but of reward/* * 

Cicero's demands for a free decision of the people 
were of course absurd. Caesar's object was, not to 
give the Roman People an opportunity of expressing 
its opinion about the execution of Lentulus, but 
merely to coerce or to muzzle a dangerous political 
opponent. Cicero had rejected his offers, and 
though Caesar had no wish to hurt Cicero unneces- 
sarily, he had decided that the blow should fall. To 
this most practical of statesmen it would have ap- 
peared the extreme of simplicity to allow his victim 
a chance of escape. He intended to effect Cicero's 

* Pro Flacco, ch. 38. 



59 B.C.] Conspiracy of the Nobles. 227 

banishment, as he had effected the measures of his 
consulship, by the exercise of sheer force. 

To the latter part of this year belongs a strange 
story, for which a brief allusion must suffice. A 
creature named Vettius, who had acted 

59 B.C. 

as a spy on the Catilinarians for Cicero 
during his consulship, proposed to young Curio a 
plot to kill Pompey. Curio reported the matter to 
his father ; the two gave information to Pompey, 
and Vettius was promptly arrested. He now dis- 
closed a tale about a great conspiracy of the Nobles 
in which Bibulus and Cicero were implicated. The 
triumvirs at first tried to make political capital out 
of the story, to damage the character of their oppo- 
nents and rouse some popular feeling in favour of 
themselves. But Vettius proved to be a clumsy liar, 
and the contradictions and absurdities of his evidence 
were too glaring for him to be of any service. He 
was found strangled in prison, and the matter was 
hushed up. Whether the whole business was con- 
trived by the triumvirs and their adherents (as Cicero 
himself undoubtedly believed),* or whether some 
mad partisans of the oligarchy really had formed a 
plan of assassination, which served Vettius as the 
foundation of his lies about the senatorial leaders, it 
is impossible at this distance of time to determine. 

For us the chief interest of the transaction lies in 
the fact that the alarm brought Atticus back in hot 
haste from Epirus to his friend's side, Cicero had 
just before pressed him to return — "As you love 
me, if you are asleep, wake up ; if you are on your 

* Ad Att. t ii. t 24. 



228 The First Triumvirate. [59 B.C. 

legs, march ; if you are on the march, run ; if you 
are running, fly."* The fresh peril brooked no 
delay. Atticus returned at once to Rome, and the 
series of letters to him is interrupted until the follow- 
ing April. 

*AdAtt. t ii., 23,3. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

CICERO'S EXILE AND RETURN. 

58-56 B.C. 

LODIUS entered on his tribune- 
ship on the 10th of December, 
and on the 1st of January 58 
B. C. the consulship of Ga- 
binius and Piso commenced. 
Caesar was now proconsul of 
Gaul, but he delayed his de- 
parture and remained with his 
newly levied legions at the 
gates of Rome. Though both 
consuls were the servants of the triumvirs, they ex- 
pected to be paid for their services. Clodius accord- 
ingly bargained to give them by decree of the People 
rich provinces and extraordinary allowances. Piso 
for instance received ;£ 180,000 under the title of 
table-furniture, though, as Cicero says, it would be 
more truly described as blood-money."* Clodius 
next abolished the small fee which had hitherto been 
paid by the recipients of the public dole of corn, 

*In Pison., 35, 86. 




229 



230 Attack on Cicero. [58 B.C. 

and effected certain constitutional changes with 
respect to the auspices and the censorship. 

Having thus prepared the way, he brought in a 
bill " that any one who had put citizens to death 
without trial should be outlawed. " Cicero was after- 
wards of opinion that he committed a fatal blunder 
in not expressing his approval of this decree, and 
taking his stand absolutely on the ground that Len- 
tulus was not a citizen but an enemy. At the mo- 
ment, however, he publicly recognised Clodius' 
proposal as directed against himself. He and his 
friends put on mourning and commended themselves 
to the people. The Roman Knights, always friendly 
to Cicero, stood by him on this occasion, and the 
Senate proclaimed its sympathies by a decree en- 
joining every member to lay aside the dress of his 
order as in times of public calamity. The consuls 
nullified this proceeding by an edict forbidding any 
senator to appear except in his proper robes. In 
the prevailing violence and disorder the tribunician 
protection, the proper remedy in such a case, was 
not available and the senators were obliged to sub- 
mit. The Roman Knights were roughly handled by 
Clodius' mobs, and were insulted by the consul 
Gabinius, who further arbitrarily ordered out of the 
city one of their number, ^Elius Lamia, because he 
had made himself conspicuous among Cicero's de- 
fenders. 

Clodius commanded the streets with gangs of 
roughs whom he had enrolled under the pretence of 
founding " collegia/' or street-guilds ; these were 
only the advanced guard of his force ; behind them 



58 B.C.] Clodius and the Triumvirs. 231 

were the triumvirs and Caesar's army. After Cicero 
had been restored from exile by aid of the Three, he 
was obliged to speak with reserve of the part they 
had taken in banishing him. Nevertheless he indi- 
cates pretty clearly that Clodius was little more than 
their instrument. What disturbed him, he says, was 
Clodius' declaration " that his measures had the ap- 
proval of these three and that he could command 
their help in carrying them through. Now one of 
these three had a powerful army in Italy ; the other 
two, though private men, could raise an army if they 
chose ; and this he said that they would do. He 
threatened me, not with the judgment of the People, 
not with any prosecution or trial or answer to the 
law, but with violence, with arms, with troops and 
generals and camps."* 

Cicero constantly complains of the " silence " of the 
Three when Clodius maintained that he was their 
agent, and indeed both their silence and their utter- 
ances left him no doubt that for once Clodius was 
telling the truth. Clodius held a meeting outside 
the gates that Caesar might be present, and he pub- 
licly questioned the proconsul as to his opinion on 
the execution of Lentulus. Caesar replied, " that in 
his judgment Cicero had acted illegally, but that he 
should prefer to let by-gones be by-gones and ad- 
vised them not to persecute Cicero further." f This 
reply, as it stood, was certainly hypocritical, for 
Caesar could have stopped Clodius' action by raising 
his finger ; but we may perhaps find a better excuse 

* Pro Sestio, 17, 40. 

f Dio Cassius, xxxviii., 17 ; Plutarch Cic, 30, 4. 



232 Attack on Cicero. [58 B.C. 

for him than that he merely wished to shirk responsi- 
bility. It is probable that now, as all along, Caesars 
action was determined solely by his desire to force 
Cicero to his side, that he looked on his exile as a 
mere temporary measure of policy, and was resolved 
to recall him so soon as he had humbled and fright- 
ened him sufficiently. In that case, he was wise in 
not committing himself to any public participation 
in his banishment, which would have made it more 
awkward for him to consent to his restoration. 
Meantime Clodius reaped all the fruits of Caesar's 
support, and openly boasted that he would march 
Caesar's army down on the Senate-house. 

From Crassus Cicero expected no help ; the two 
had never been friends. Young Publius indeed, the 
son of Crassus, was one of Cicero's warmest admir- 
ers and had put on mourning along with him ; but 
he could not influence his father. Pompey shows 
very badly on this occasion. Almost to the last he 
had encouraged Cicero by his promises, and now in 
the hour of peril " suddenly he fell away from him.".* 
He studiously kept out of Cicero's way, and referred 
him to the consuls, whose help he pretended to de- 
sire ; he would be only too glad to oppose force to 
the violence of Clodius, but he was a private man, 
and must really wait till he was summoned by the 
consuls.f To the consuls accordingly Cicero turned. 
Gabinius rudely repulsed him. Piso affected some 
concern ; " but," said he, " Gabinius is in difficulties ; 
he is quite out at elbows ; he is a ruined man unless 

* " Subita defectio Pompeii," Ad Q. F. y i., 4, 4. 
\ Pro Sestio, 18, 41. 



I: 




THE THREE COLUMNS OF THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR. 
(Duruy.) 



58 B.C.] Clodius Attack on Cicero. 233 

he gets a province, and if I stand by him he has 
good hopes of one from the tribune, for it is hopeless 
to look for anything from the Senate. I must 
oblige him, just as you did your colleague Antonius. 
It is of no use your applying to the consuls ; every 
one must look after himself." * Shortly afterwards 
when publicly questioned by Clodius what he 
thought of Cicero's consulship, Piso delivered him- 
self of the oracular response, that " he did not ap- 
prove of cruelty." 

Meanwhile the day for the passing of Clodius* bill 
drew on. His new law about the auspices seems to 
have barred any attempt to invalidate the proceed- 
ings as those of Caesar had been invalidated by 
Bibulus. The veto of Clodius* colleagues in the 
tribuneship could only be exercised personally, and 
if they interposed except under the protection of an 
armed force they were certain to be killed on the 
spot. Clodius did not content himself with the 
bludgeons of his newly formed guilds, but occupied 
the temple of Castor in the Forum with armed men, 
removing the steps which led up to the temple, so 
as to make it a veritable fortress. It became every 
day more clear that Cicero must either fly or else 
fight a pitched battle. He had on his side the 
Senate, the equestrian order, and the whole country 
population of Italy ; but it would require time to 
collect and marshal these forces, whereas the gangs 
of Clodius were ready armed and organised. Even 
if the tribune were disposed of, Cicero would have 
still to deal with the consuls and with Caesar, so that, 

* In Pisonem^ 6, 12. 



234 Flight of Cicero. [58 B.C. 

as Clodius maliciously pointed out to him, he would 
either be knocked on the head once for all, or else 
have to win a battle twice over.* Lucullus notwith- 
standing gave his voice for fighting, and Cato prob- 
ably was of the same mind, f Hortensius, on the 
other hand, strongly advised that Cicero should bow 
to the storm, and retire voluntarily from the city. 
The majority of the Nobles agreed with him, pro- 
testing that it would only be a matter of a few 
days, and that Cicero would soon be brought home 
in triumph. 

Cicero made a final appeal to Pompey. In his 
despair he flung himself at his feet and begged him 
to redeem his promise ; but Pompey did not even 
raise him from the ground and coldly replied that 
he could do nothing against Caesar's wishes.;): Thus 
baulked of his last hope, Cicero removed from his 
house a consecrated image of Minerva bearing the 
inscription " The Guardian of the City," and de- 
posited it as a pledge and memorial in 
Ma^chV End ° f the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol ; 
then with a heavy heart he departed 
from Rome. 

The same day Clodius carried his bill. The oppo- 
sition to his measures had now collapsed, and he 
might do what he pleased. After first paying the 
consuls their hire, he next carried a resolution 

* Pro Sestio, 19, 43. 

f Dio Cassius (xxxviii. , 17, 4) and Plutarch (Cato Minor > 35, 1) assert 
the contrary, but their authority is not sufficient to outweigh Cicero's 
words (Ad A tt. y iii., 15, 2) expressly exonerating Cato from the 
blame which he heaps on Hortensius. See also Ad. JFam,, xv., 4, 12. 

%AdAtt. f x., 4, 3. 



58 B.C.] Cicero's Exile. 235 

directed against Cicero by name. This decree set 
forth, not that Cicero should be outlawed, but that 
he " had been outlawed " already by the terms of 
the general law. * It further fixed a limit of space, 
400 miles, within which this outlawry was to be 
operative ; anyone who received or comforted the 
banished man within these limits was himself liable 
to proscription. By the same decree Cicero's goods 
were confiscated, and his house ordered to be razed 
to the ground. No time was lost in carrying out 
these last provisions ; Clodius with his mob sacked 
and burned the house on the Palatine, seized all the 
property of Cicero on which he could lay hands, and 
threatened Terentia with legal proceedings on the 
charge that she was concealing some of her husband's 
goods. 

Caesar, who had remained at the gates until Cicero 
was driven from Rome, now swept northwards. In 
eight days he was on the banks of the Rhone ; be- 
fore the summer was out, he had annihilated the 
armed nation of the Helvetii and had driven the 
mighty hosts of the Germans back across the Rhine. 
After these two splendid victories, Caesar withdrew 
his army, as he tells us, into winter-quarters " some 
what earlier than the usual season." 

Before departing for his province, he had made 

* Cicero, (Pro Domo, 18, 47) speaks of the perfect tense as a 
monstrous blunder, but it was probably correct. The second decree 
is a declaratory act, which proceeds on the assumption that Cicero 
was hit by the terms of the first law and that he has acknowledged 
his guilt by retiring into exile. There is a close parallel in Livy, 
xxvi., 3, 12. " Postquam dies comitiorum aderat, Cn. Fulvius 
exulatum Tarquinios abiit. Id ei justum exilium esse scivit plebs. " 



236 Removal of Cato. [58 B.C. 

arrangements for expelling from Rome the other 
statesman who shared with Cicero the honour of 
being feared by Caesar as a leader of opposition. 
Cato was to be removed more gently than his com- 
rade had been, but quite as effectually. Clodius had 
passed a law for the annexation of the kingdom of 
Cyprus, and the deposition of the Ptolemy who 
reigned there. This king was the brother of that 
Ptolemy Auletes who had purchased his recognition 
as King of Egypt from Caesar (above p. 209), and it 
was an act of cynical injustice thus to ruin the Cypriot 
ruler, whose title was just the same, as a punishment 
for not having bribed the triumvirs. Clodius had 
undertaken the business with all the more zest be- 
cause the King of Cyprus had once refused to ransom 
him from the pirates. Clodius now passed a supple- 
mentary decree, commanding Cato by name to 
execute the deposition of Ptolemy. This order he 
did not venture to disobey. He wrote to Ptolemy 
promising to treat him with all consideration ; but 
the unfortunate king put an end to his own life, and 
Cato was obliged to content himself with an ostenta- 
tious incorruptibility in administering his effects and 
paying the money realised into the Treasury. Mean- 
time Caesar's object was accomplished, and he wrote 
a letter* to Clodius, congratulating him that he 
had got Cato out of the way for the rest of his 
tribunate, and had likewise shut his mouth for the 
future about extraordinary commissions. Cato did 
not come back to Rome for more than two years. 
We must now turn to accompany Cicero on his 

* Pro Domo, 9, 22. 



58 B.C.] Cicero in Exile. 237 

melancholy journey. After wandering for a while in 
southern Italy, always in dread lest he should bring 
ruin on his hosts, he crossed over into Epirus from 
Brundisium on the last day of April. 
He would have preferred Athens for 
his place of residence, but was afraid of Autronius 
and other exiled Catilinarians who infested Greece. 
Finally he resolved to avoid Greece altogether, and 
proceeded by the great northern road across Mace- 
donia to Thessalonica, where he arrived on the 22d 
of May. Here he was received with great kindness 
by Plancius the quaestor of the province, who afforded 
him ample protection and such consolation as was 
possible under the circumstances. 

But consolation was the last thing of which Cicero 
would accept at this time. He was crushed in spirit 
by the blow which had fallen on him, and his letters 
are full of nothing but lamentation and self-reproach 
and upbraidings of his friends. His retirement, for 
which he could find abundance of excellent reasons 
a few months later, now appears to him an act of in- 
credible folly and perverseness. Why had he not 
stayed and fought it out as Lucullus recommended ? 
Why had Hortensius and the rest given him such 
treacherous advice? Why had they said that his 
absence would be an affair of a few days? Why 
had Atticus contented himself with tears for his 
misfortune, when he might have averted it by sager 
counsel ? Why, when all was lost, had his friend re- 
strained him from falling on his own sword, the only 
honourable resource? It will come to that in the 
end, he thinks, but the opportunity for dying with 



238 Cicero s Despondency. [58 B.C. 

credit has been lost. He is convinced that never 
has there been such a fall as his ; he measures it by 
all the height of his former position of honour and 
influence. He has brought ruin not only on himself 
but on his dear ones at home ; he does not trust 
himself to meet his brother Quintus, now returning 
home from his province ; they would both be too 
much unmanned. Throughout he despairs of any 
improvement in the situation, and turns a deaf ear to 
the hopes which his friends hold out to him. 

Lessing in his famous treatise on the Laocoon 
has drawn an interesting contrast between the con- 
ventions of ancient and modern life with regard to 
the manifestations of pain and grief. The northern 
peoples of Europe have inherited notions of the 
dignity of stoical endurance, which, though far less 
thorough than those of some barbaric races, lead us 
to consider tears and lamentations as unworthy of 
a man. The Greeks and, to a certain extent, the 
Romans were more natural in their utterance of their 
feelings. Philoctetes can howl from the pain of his 
wound, and Achilles roll on the sand in the agpny 
of his bereavement, without degradation or loss of 
sympathy. It is said * that the modern Italians 
show something of the same unconventionality and 
absence of self-restraint. 

In Cicero we find these characteristics carried to 
an extreme. Stoical reserve is sadly wanting in him. 
The versatile intelligence, the susceptibility to im- 
pressions, the quick wit and the genial receptiveness, 

* See Adolphus Trollope's Beppo the Conscript, ch. 7 (the Bad 
Number). 



58 B.C.] Cicero s Mercurial Temperament. 239 

which give their charm to his writings as they doubt- 
less did to his conversation, are compensated in the 
economy of nature by an equal sensitiveness to pain. 
There never was a man of less equable temperament 
than Cicero, nor one born more completely under the 
influence of the planet Mercury. In the stir of life 
and action he is alert and sanguine ; when he is struck 
down by misfortune he becomes nerveless and de- 
pressed, and all that remains of his ingenuity is 
employed in devising fresh reasons for torturing 
himself. During times of prosperity he suns himself 
in the society of his friends, in the affection of his 
children, in the applause of his fellows, in the ap- 
proval of his own judgment and conscience ; when- 
ever these fail him, the gloom of anxiety and 
disappointment closes around him, and he sets forth 
his grief and despair as frankly as he had set forth 
his self-satisfaction. Happiness and misery affect 
him with equal keenness, and his unrivalled powers 
of expression are employed in both cases to display 
to his friends, and, as fortune would have it, through 
them to future centuries, feelings which had better 
have been buried in his own breast. If we are in- 
clined to think hardly of him, let us remember that 
these are, as the French say, "the defects of his 
qualities." 

About the end of the year Cicero left Thessalonica 
for Epirus. He could hardly remain in Macedon ; 
his friend Plancius' term of office was 

Dec, 58 B.C. 

out, and his enemy Piso was expected 

as the new governor. Besides the horizon had already 

begun to clear ; Cicero could now afford to disregard 



240 Clodius Tribunate. [58 B.C. 

the limits to which Clodius' law confined him, and 
was at liberty to approach close to Italy and await 
the restoration which was drawing nigh. 

Clodius had become intolerable in Rome. " Like 
Caesar himself," writes Mommsen, " Caesar's ape kept 
governorships and other posts great and small on 
sale for the benefit of his fellow-citizens, and sold the 
sovereign rights of the State for the benefit of sub- 
ject kings and cities." " What region," asks * Cicero, 
" what district of any extent was there on the face 
of the earth, in which some principality was not set 
up ? What king was there who did not recognise 
that it was time for him to buy what was another's 
right, or to pay black-mail for what was his own ? " 

Grown bold with impunity, Clodius at length 

ventured to cross the path of Pompey himself. He 

accepted money from the King of Ar- 

May, 58 B.C. r j & 

menia to procure the release of his son, 
who had been brought to Rome as a hostage, and in 
pursuance of his bargain carried off the young prince 
from the custody in which Pompey had placed him. 
When Pompey tried to oppose force by force, Clodius 
not only defeated him in the streets, but attempted 
his life by means of an assassin. Pompey was obliged 
to barricade himself in his own house for the re- 
mainder of Clodius' year of office. 

The departure of Caesar's army and the estrange- 
ment of Pompey left the Romans more free to ex- 
press their real feelings as to Cicero's 

June, 58 B.C. r 

banishment. Though not one of 
Clodius' colleagues had dared to interpose his veto 

* Pro Sestio y 30, 66. 



58 B.C.] Proposals for Recall. 241 

at the critical moment, Ninnius, as early as the 1st 
of June brought the question of Cicero's recall be- 
fore the Senate, and elicited an unanimous resolution 
in favour of it ; in October, eight of the tribunes not 
only consulted the Senate but proposed a bill to the 
People.* These measures were inoperative except 
as a demonstration, for they were vetoed by Clodius 
and his single adherent among the tribunes. The 
consular elections in the summer resulted in favour 
of Lentulus Spinther and Metellus Nepos, the same 
who, as tribune, had forbidden Cicero to speak to the 
people when he went out of office at the end of the 
year 63 (see above p. 161). He now announced that 
he would forget his old feud, and not oppose any 
measures in Cicero's favour. His colleague declared 
himself from the first Cicero's friend, and almost all 
the tribunes-elect were on the same side. Amongst 
them were Titus Annius Milo, and Publius Sestius. 
Sestius before the end of the year under- 

, . . ^ 1 , 1 Autumn, 58 B.C. 

took a journey into Gaul to beg the 
acquiescence of Caesar, f As early as August Cicero 
had mentioned in a letter % some information re- 
ceived from Varro which seemed to indicate that 
Caesar showed signs of relenting. Nevertheless 
Sestius' overtures were at first unsuccessful, and 
some delay was thus caused ; for Pompey could 
hardly permit Cicero to return without first gaining 
Caesar's consent. At length his objections were re- 
moved, apparently by negotiations with Quintus 

* Pro Sestio, 31, 68 ; and 32, 69. 
f Pro Sestio , 33, 71. 
\Ad Att., iii. 15, 3. 
16 



242 Cicero s Recall. [57 B.C. 

Cicero, who gave certain pledges on his brother's ac- 
count to the triumvirs, and Caesar now expressed his 
approval of the measures which Pompey wished to 
adopt (see below p. 266). 

The proceedings of Clodius in the last months of 
his tribuneship were like the tricks of a mischievous 
monkey. His quarrel with Pompey implied a breach 
in his alliance with Gabinius ; accordingly he set his 
gangs upon him, wounded his attendants, and broke 
up his consular fasces. Then he put up an altar of 
incense and, standing before it with veiled head, 
consecrated all the goods of the consul to the 
temple of Ceres ; as at a solemn sacrifice, a flute- 
player piped the accompaniment to the traditional 
words of banning. One of his colleagues mimicked 
the ceremony and consecrated Clodius' goods under 
the same form. Clodius next turned upon Caesar. 
He convened an assembly in the Forum and sum- 
moned Bibulus and the college of augurs to attend. 
He put the question to Bibulus, whether he had 
not observed lightning on each occasion when Caesar 
carried his laws ? He elicited a response from the 
augurs that such an observation invalidated the pro- 
ceedings. " In that case," summed up this impartial 
judge, " it appears that Caesar's official acts, includ- 
ing my adoption, are null and void. Let them all 
be set aside by a decree of the Senate. Cicero is 
the preserver of Rome, and I will bring him home 
again on my own shoulders." * 

The first act of Lentulus Spinther as consul was 
to bring the question of Cicero's recall again before 

* Pro Domo % 15, 40. 



57 B.C.] Cicero s Recall. 243 

the Senate, and the matter was fully discussed on 
the first of January, 57 B.C. * Lucius Aurelius 
Cotta, the first senator who was asked his opinion, 
protested that no legislation was required ; the whole 
of the proceedings against Cicero, he argued, were 
null and void ; he had merely yielded to violence, 
and now he should be simply invited to resume his 
place in the State. Pompey, who came next, while 
agreeing with much that Cotta said, recommended 
that for the avoidance of all scruples a bill should be 
proposed annulling the former decree and expressly 
restoring all Cicero's rights. This view (which was 
Cicero's own) met with the approval of the Senate. 
Though some delays occurred through 

• Tan ct R O 

the opposition of a single tribune, a 

decree was actually brought before the people on 

the 24th of January. 

But Clodius, though no longer tribune, was still 
master of the streets. His gangs were reinforced by 
some gladiators whom he was training, and with 
these he made an armed attack on the supporters of 
the bill. A regular battle was fought f ; the Forum 
had to be swabbed with sponges to clear away the 
blood, and corpses were tossed into the river or 
choked the sewers ; Quintus Cicero barely escaped 
with his life ; the day ended with the victory of 
Clodius and the bill was not carried. On another 
day the tribune Sestius was assailed with equal 
violence ; he was left for dead on the ground, but 
none of his wounds proved mortal. Milo attempted 

* Pro Sestio, 34. 

\ Pro Sestio, 35, 75, seg. 



244 Cicero's Recall. [57 B.C. 

to bring Clodius to justice, but found his family con- 
nections too powerful. He then resolved to meet 
Clodius with his own weapons and himself hired 
a band of gladiators ; many of Cicero's friends seem 
to have contributed to bear the expense. The two 
champions fought out their quarrel much in the 
fashion of the Montagues and Capulets, and neither 
could drive his adversary from the field. It was 
sufficient however for Milo to hold Clodius in check, 
and so soon as he accomplished this, the public feel- 
ing in favor of Cicero's recall bore down all other 
obstacles. Meanwhile the Senate refused to transact 
any other business until this measure was carried 
through, and it passed decrees commending Cicero's 
safety to the protection of all magistrates in the 
provinces, and giving thanks to those communities 
which had sheltered and comforted him.* 

At length after months of obstruction the bill was 
again introduced. The Senate, combining the ad- 
vice of Cottaand of Pompey, now issued a proclama- 
tion that all who desired the salvation of the State f 
should come to Rome to vote in Cicero's cause, and 
at the same time they decreed that, in case the vote 
should be delayed for more than five lawful days, 
they invited Cicero to return as a citizen under no 
legal condemnation or disability. On the strength 
of this invitation Cicero crossed over into Italy and 
landed at Brundisium on the 5th of 
August. Here the whole population 
of the town went forth to greet his landing, and 

* Pro Sestio, 60, 128, and Pro Domo, 32, 85. 
f Pro Domo, 28, 73. 



57 B.C.] Return from Exile. 245 

with them his daughter Tullia, who had come thus 
far to meet her father. By a happy coincidence* the 
day was the anniversary of the foundation of the 
town and was likewise Tullia's birthday. 

Three days later Cicero received the news that 
the bill had actually passed on the 4th of August. 
Every circumstance served to heighten his triumph. 
The immense crowds of citizens from the country, 
who had flocked to Romef and now assembled on 
the Campus Martius to proclaim their good-will to 
Cicero, afforded a striking contrast to the handful of 
roughs and slaves whose assent had given the form 
of law to his banishment. The assembly was by 
centuries, the most solemn and august fashion for the 
utterance of the popular voice ; the bill was intro- 
duced by both the consuls ; Pompey himself urged its 
acceptance and delivered a panegyric on Cicero ; men 
of rank and position not only appeared to give their 
votes, but were proud to discharge in person the 
subordinate functions of distributing the ballots 
and counting the votes. Clodius was present and 
was permitted to say what he had to say against the 
proposal ; but the feeling of the assembled multitude 
was practically unanimous, and every century voted 
in the affirmative. So far as the unwieldy forms of 
a mass-meeting permit a real expression of the will 
of the majority, this was a truly representative assem- 
bly, and this decree stands almost alone in the latter 



*AdAtt. % iv., 1, 4. 

f Clodius accused Cicero {Ad Att., iv., I, 6, and Pro Domo y 6, 14) 
of having made corn dear, apparently on the ground that the number 
of strangers who had come to vote for him had eaten up the supplies. 



246 Return from Exile. [57 B.C. 

days of the Republic, as having received not only 
the formal but the real assent of the Roman people. 

Cicero's journey homeward was a triumphal pro- 
gress. Along the way he was stopped by deputations 
sent from all parts of Italy to congratulate him. 
When he reached the gates he found that every one 
with the least pretence to be a notable person in 
Rome had come forth to greet him ; even Crassus 
was there, and none stayed behind except those 
whose hostility had been too notorious for them to 
be able to pretend to join in the welcome. As 
Cicero advanced he found the steps of the temples 
occupied from top to bottom by enthusiastic crowds, 
whose plaudits accompanied him through the densely 
thronged Forum and up to the Capitol, whither 
he went to offer thanks to the gods for his safe 
return.* 

One thing was wanting to complete Cicero's resto- 
ration. The site of his house on the Palatine had 
been consecrated by Clodius, and a shrine of Liberty 
erected thereon. It was doubtful therefore whether 
it could again be applied to secular uses. The 
question was referred to the college of pontiffs, and 
their unanimous votef declared the consecration to 
be null and void. Cicero's house was rebuilt on the 
old site at the public expense. 

Cicero was pleased to find that he was still re- 
garded as the unquestioned leader of the bar. The 
applications of clients the instant he returned to 
Rome sufficiently convinced him of this. The devo- 

* Ad Ait., iv., I, 5. 
\De Har, Resp., 6, 12. 



57 B.C.] Return from Exile. 247 

tion of all loyal citizens in his cause seems even to 
have alarmed him, as likely to rekindle the jealousy 
from which he had suffered so much. He now shakes 
off all the despondency of his exile, and can look 
forward with a light heart. " I feel," he writes to 
Atticus,* " as if I was starting at the commence- 
ment of a new life." 

The enthusiasm displayed by the Romans was 
partly due to sympathy with Cicero himself, partly 
it was a manifestation of disgust at the reign of law- 
lessness and rascality which had been the first-fruits 
of Caesar's attack on the constitution. With the 
return of Cicero, men began to hope that this most 
discreditable page in the national history was turned 
down once for all. They did not perceive how seri- 
ously the fabric of the constitution had been shaken, 
nor how imminent was the danger to those republi- 
can institutions which they still cherished as their 
most precious birthright. In real truth it would have 
taxed the utmost resources of statesmanship now to 
find a solution. Whether the triumvirate held to- 
gether, or whether it dissolved, the issue was likely 
to be equally disastrous to the survival of the free 
State. Cicero's " new life " began in a world which 
admitted only of counsels of despair. 

Three days after his return we find Cicero once more 
handling affairs of State. The Senate was called to 
suggest remedies for a dearth, which caused much 
discontent, and Cicero moved that Pompey should 
be invested with proconsular power for five years, 
and should exercise control over the corn-supply of 

*AdAtL, iv., 1, 8. 



248 Pompey and the Corn-Supply. [57 B.C. 

the whole world. * The motion was carried, and the 
consuls immediately embodied the resolution in a bill 
which received the assent of the people. The pro- 
posal of this honorable charge for Pompey was in 
accordance with the general policy which Cicero had 
pursued since his first entry on public life ; it was 
likewise a graceful act of recognition of Pompey's 
services in procuring his recall from exile. It seems 
however, to have given offence to the leaders of the 
optimate party — " The consulars," Cicero writes, 
" take their cue from Favonius and express dissatis- 
faction." Clodius availed himself of their resent- 
ment when Cicero pleaded before the pontiffs for 
the restoration of his house, and Cicero found him- 
self obliged to defend his action at length, and to 
deprecate any prejudice which it might occasion in 
the minds of his judges. f 

But that which the Optimates thought too much 
for Pompey was much less than what Pompey him- 
self desired. His real wishes were revealed by a 
counter-proposal of the tribune Messius, which would 
have given to the Commissioner of the corn-supply 
the disposal of the Treasury, an army, a fleet, and a 
power in every province superior to that of the 
actual governor. Public opinion w r as not yet ripe for 
so thorough a measure. Even if the Republicans 
had accepted it, we may doubt whether Caesar would 
have acquiesced, and whether the effect would not 
rather have been to hurry on the civil war. This 
risk, however, might well have been faced. Caesar's 
army was not as yet fashioned to that perfect ef- 

* Ad All. , iv., I, 7. f Pro Domo> ch. 2-9. 



57 B.C.] Difficulties of Pompey. 249 

ficiency which it afterwards attained, and though 
even now the Republicans would have found it dif- 
ficult to hold Italy, they might have made a fight for 
it in the East with far better chances than when they 
tried the fortune of war six years later. At this 
eleventh hour the sole chance for the Republic was 
to place itself unreservedly in Pompey's hands, and 
to trust that the loyalty which he had shown at the 
end of the Mithridatic war would still be the guiding 
principle of his conduct. 

This was the more to be hoped, because Pompey's 
subsequent defection from honour and duty had 
borne him bitter fruits. He had expected to use 
Caesar as his instrument, and now his eyes were 
opened to the fact that Caesar was fast becoming his 
master. Two years of splendid victories had half 
revealed to the world the supreme military genius. 
Caesar's army was devoted, not to any party or 
principle, but solely to its incomparable chief. He 
had made himself a position independent of his con- 
federate and could conquer and govern at will 
throughout his vast province, while a tribune or two 
in his pay at home served to secure his interests in 
the central government. Pompey meanwhile was 
sorely perplexed in his new position. He had little 
capacity and little inclination for guiding the turbu- 
lent politics of the capital. His main object now 
was to secure himself some military force and some 
base of operations independent of Caesar. But here 
he was met by constant difficulties ; he was checked 
alike by his own best feelings, and by the memory of 
his past defection. On the one hand the Optimates 



250 The Political Situation. [57 B.C, 

wished that he should divorce Julia * ; but Pompey 
steadily refused to sacrifice the tender and beautiful 
woman, whose love both for her husband and for her 
father bound them together by a tie more honourable 
than that of political expediency. On the other 
hand, Pompey bore, and not unjustly, the odium 
which resulted from the lawless acts of Caesar's con« 
sulship, and he was still compelled to play the part 
of figure-head in a Cabinet in which the decisive word 
lay no longer with him. The constitutional party 
had now some excuse for refusing to trust him. 

Pompey was still further hampered by his own re- 
serve and mystery and dread of committing himself. 
These bad habits had by long indulgence now com- 
pletely gained the mastery over him. It is pitiful to 
see how a man, honest and well-meaning at bottom, 
earned the reputation of insincerity and double-deal- 
ing, merely because he was afraid to speak his mind. 
No one now relied on him. Cicero expresses this 
distrust in an amusing way to Atticus a few months 
later.f " He had a long conversation with me on 
politics, and was by no means satisfied with his posi- 
tion — so he said (for that is as much as one can vouch 
for in case of Pompey) : he did not care for Syria, and 
thought nothing of Spain — add, if you please, ' so he 
said! I think indeed that whenever we speak of him 
we may append the tag, ' so he said' like the refrain 
of ' thus saith Phocylides ' in the epigrams.'' % 

* Plutarch, Pomp., 49, 3. f Ad Att., iv., 9, I. 

% This tag was used both by Phocylides and Demodocus. The fol- 
lowing epigram (it is doubtful to which of the two it belongs) will 
serve as an example : 

Kai rods $gdhv\i5ov • MiXr/6toi driver ot fxhv 
Ovh ei6ir • dp audi v <5' oiditEf} d&verou 



56 B.C.] The Egyptian Question. 251 

On this question of the corn-supply, while pressing 
the more thorough-going proposal of Messius by 
means of his friends and adherents, he affected to 
prefer that of Cicero. This hesitancy destroyed the 
last chance of Messius* success. " The bill," writes 
Cicero,* " which the consuls brought forward on my 
recommendation, now appears moderate, and this of 
Messius not to be borne." Pompey accepted the 
commission with its restricted powers, and this op- 
portunity was lost to the Republic. 

Pompey's hopes were next directed towards Egypt. 
King Ptolemy, " the Piper," had been forcibly ex- 
pelled by his subjects not long after Caesar had 
obtained his recognition by Rome. As the triumvirs 
had sold him his throne for a great sum, he naturally 
expected them to guarantee him quiet possession of 
his purchase. He sent envoys to Rome, requesting 
that he might be restored and that Pompey might 
be authorised to re-instate him. This commission 
would have given Pompey just what he wanted — a 
fleet, an army, and a base of operations. It will be 
recollected that some years before (in 65 and again 
in 63) Caesar and Crassus had looked to Egypt as the 
place where they might build up a power against 
that of Pompey. Now the positions are reversed ; 
Caesar is the man in possession of military force, and 
Pompey would fain counterbalance that force by 
establishing himself in Egypt. 

But here again the Nobles could not recognise the 
fact, which seems to us so obvious, that Caesar was 
the really dangerous man, and that the only chance 
of resisting him was to make Pompey strong enough 

* Ad Att. % iv.> 1, 7. 



252 The Political Situation. [56 B.C. 

to be independent of him. Their alarms were still 
directed to Pompey ; he was to them still what a 
" scatterbrained young man " * had nick-named him 
during Caesar's consulship, " The Dictator without 
office/' The majority then of the Senate resolved 
in their wisdom that Pompey was not to be trusted 
with an army, and accordingly, on the pretext of a 
Sibylline oracle, unearthed for the occasion, they 
passed a decree that the King of Egypt must not be 
restored by military force. Even with this restriction 
they were unwilling that Pompey should be allowed 
to meddle with Egypt ; and, indeed, there were 
numerous rival candidates for so lucrative a commis- 
sion. While Pompey's adherents urged his claims, 
Pompey himself affected to approve of Cicero's 
exertions on behalf of his benefactor Lentulus 
Spinther, who after his consulship had become 
governor of Cilicia and Cyprus. Cicero writes to 
Lentulus that " when he hears Pompey speak, he 
acquits him of any hankering after the job," but 
that his action is so inconsistent that he cannot 
penetrate his real wishes. " You know," he adds, 
" how slow the man is, and how incapable of speak- 
ing out." f The time was wasted in endless 
wrangles, and nothing could be settled in the 
Senate. Ptolemy remained an exile till the next 
year (55 B.C.) when Gabinius, the governor of Syria, 
without any authorisation from the home govern- 
ment, restored him to his throne. 

* This " adolescens nullius consilii," as Cicero (Ad Q. F %% i., 2, 
15) called him, was Caius Cato, a person whom we must take care 
not to confuse with his great namesake Marcus. 

f Ad Fam.y i., 5, b. 2. 



56 B.C.] Clodius and Pompey. 253 

So far then the Nobles had thwarted all Pompey 's 
efforts. Their dislike to him was curiously evinced 
by their attitude towards Clodius at this period. 
Clodius had indeed done much to outrage the feel- 
ings of the Optimates ; but, after all, he was one of 
themselves, a Noble of the bluest blood, and they 
were disposed to put up with many eccentricities 
from such a one. The principal sufferer had been 
Cicero, and the wrongs of a " new man " did not 
rouse much sympathy in their minds. Besides, 
Cicero had been restored, and what more did he 
want? True, Clodius had appeared with his mob, 
and driven off the masons who were rebuilding 
Cicero's house ; he had attacked Cicero himself with 
stones and swords, as he was proceeding (happily 
with a sufficient escort) along the Sacred Way, and 
he had succeeded in setting fire to the house of 
Quintus. But the Ciceros might look after them- 
selves; men who had risen from the middle class 
had no business to stand on their dignity. The 
Nobles then petted and encouraged Clodius, who 
was always ready to show sport by insulting and 
annoying Pompey. They had baffled all Milo's 
efforts, as tribune, to bring him to trial, and now 
(in the year 56) Clodius was sedile, and could in turn 
arraign Milo before the People. When a namesake 
and creature of their favourite, Sextus Clodius, was 
tried before a jury for complicity in his patron's 
lawless proceedings, a majority among the non- 
senatorial jurors was for a verdict of " Guilty," but 
the senators' votes turned the scale, and procured 
an acquittal. 



254 The Political Situation. [56 b.c. 

Cicero was naturally indignant at all this. In a 
speech, delivered in the Senate early in this year, 
he upbraids the Nobles with the folly 
and indecency of their conduct. " I 
am not surprised at Clodius ; he does after his kind. 
But I am astonished at those men of sense and 
character, first, that they listen so readily when they 
hear a great citizen and a noble servant of the com- 
monwealth traduced by the tongue of a scoundrel ; 
next, that they hold a doctrine most contrary to 
their own interests, that the glory and dignity of 
any man are at the mercy of the insults of a rascal, 
bankrupt in fortune and reputation ; lastly, that 
they do not appreciate, though I fancy they must 
have some suspicion of it, that these same wild and 
whirling words may one day be directed against 
themselves. . . . Gan we believe it that worthy 
citizens have brooked to gather to their bosoms and 
hold as their darling this fanged and deadly adder? 
With what bait did he catch them ? ' We wish/ 
they say, ' that there should be some one to speak 
against Pompey, and to cast reproach on Pompey.' 
What ! does Clodius cast reproach on Pompey by 
abusing him? I hope that great man, to whom I 
owe so much, will take what I say in the spirit in 
which it is meant ; at any rate, I will speak my mind. 
To me, I protest, it seems that some reproach was 
cast on his noble and honoured name ; but it was 
on the occasion when Clodius praised him to the 
skies." * 

The situation was yet further complicated by 

* De Har. Resp mt 24, 50. 



56 B.C.J Pompey and Crassus. 255 

dissensions between Pompey and Crassus. There 
never was much love lost between the two, and 
though Caesar had brought them together, their true 
feelings manifested themselves now that Caesar's 
presence was withdrawn. We find Pompey com- 
plaining to Cicero in February, 56, " that plots were 
being laid against his life ; that money was being 
supplied by Crassus to Clodius and to Clodius' asso- 
ciate, Caius Cato, and that Curio, Bibulus, and 
others of his old opponents were likewise backing 
up the pair." * In order to protect himself, Pompey 
was obliged to enroll a band of roughs, whom he 
imported from his native Picenum. 

Meanwhile Clodius did not have it all his own 
way in the streets. Cicero's escort showed fight on 
the occasion when Clodius set upon him in the 
" Via Sacra." They retired into a friend's portico, 
and beat back their assailants from thence. At one 
moment Clodius' life was at their mercy, but Cicero 
would not give the word. " I am weary," he writes,f 
" of heroic surgery, and am trying to starve out the 
disease." Milo was less scrupulous. " I 

1 • 1 »» •-.. -1 1 j Nov., 57 B.C. 

think, says Cicero in the same letter,:; 
"that Publius will be brought to trial by Milo, 
unless he is killed first. If he puts himself in 
Milo's road during a riot, Milo will certainly do it ; 
he is quite resolved and announces it openly ; he 
has no fear of falling as I did, for he puts his trust 
in no one but himself/ 



*AdQ.F., ii., 3, 4. 

\AdAtt,, iv. f 3, 3. 
\AdAtt., iv., 3, 5, 



256 Defence of Sestius. [56 B.C. 

Clodius had no luck when he tried to carry the 
war of prosecutions at law into the enemy's camp. 
His accusation of Milo before the people came to 
nothing, and a charge of rioting which he brought 
before a jury against Sestius, whom we have seen as 
tribune exerting himself to procure Cicero's restora- 
tion, led to a signal triumph for Clodius* opponents. 
The occasion brought Cicero at once to 

Feb. 14, 56 B.C. ** 

the front. " Sestius was unwell," he 
writes to his brother * ; "I went straight to his 
house, and placed myself, as I was bound to do, 
entirely at his disposal. This, however, was more 
than people expected of me, for they thought that 
I had good reasons for being vexed with Sestius. 
So both he and the public consider that I have 
behaved like a kind friend and a grateful man, and I 
mean to act up to the character." 

Cicero nobly redeemed this pledge, and his speech 
for Sestius remains as an admirable specimen of 
forensic oratory applied to a State trial. The story 
of Sestius' tribunate, of his labours crowned at last 
with success in Cicero's cause, and of the desperate 
lawlessness, with which he had to contend, is set 
forth with every grace of language and 

Mar. 11, 56 B.C. / S S S . 

every force of argument. lhe jury 
responded readily to Cicero's appeal, and Sestius 
was acquitted by an absolutely unanimous vote. 

Among the witnesses for the prosecution in this 
case was Publius Vatinius, the same who as tribune, 
in 59 B.C., had passed the law which gave Caesar his 
command in Gaul. Cicero availed himself of the 



* AdQ. F. 9 ii., 3, 5. 



56 B.C.] Speech against Vatinius. 257 

curious practice of the Roman law-courts, to direct 
against Vatinius a speech of fierce invective under 
the form of questions in his cross-examination. " In 
defending our surly-tempered friend/' he writes im- 
mediately afterwards, * " I gave him his due, full 
measure and running over ; and, as he particularly 
wished it, I turned upon Vatinius who was an 
avowedly hostile witness. I cut into him at my 
leisure to the satisfaction of heaven and earth. . . . 
The end of it was that Vatinius, impudent and 
reckless as he is, retired quite baffled and crest- 
fallen." 

Cicero's speech against Vatinius is not pleasant 
reading. The invective, which rises to dignity when 
aimed at great antagonists, like Catiline and Antony, 
sinks to vulgar abuse when directed against under- 
lings, such as Vatinius, Piso, and Gabinius. The 
account which Cicero, in his confidential letter to his 
brother, gives of the effectiveness of the speech is 
undoubtedly true ; but we can only wonder at the 
fact. It must be remembered, however, that the 
Romans tolerated and expected a roundness of in. 
vective, which is much at variance with the greater 
decorum of modern habits of speech. One reason 
for the difference probably is, that our notions of 
what is proper and gentlemanlike are an inheritance 
from days when the practice of duelling compelled 
every one to be punctilious both about the language 
he used and the language of which he must take 
notice. Now, nothing like the duel had existed in 
the civic communities of the ancient world, and so 

*AdQ. /?.,ii., 4, 1. 

17 



258 Speech against Vatinius. [56 B.C. 

the point of honour was not liable to be touched in 
the controversies of society or of politics. To a 
Roman, abuse was mere words and wind, carrying 
no responsibility with it ; neither did the man who 
uttered it suffer from loss of dignity, nor was the ob- 
ject of it under any obligation to clear his character. 

Notwithstanding its sins against good taste, the 
speech against Vatinius has an interest of its own as 
illustrating Cicero's attitude towards Caesar. He 
could hardly attack Caesar's jackal without approach- 
ing dangerously near to the proconsul himself. When 
he inveighs against Vatinius for carrying laws in de- 
fiance of the auspices, do not his words reflect on 
Vatinius' master? Cicero will not allow his victim 
to associate his cause with that of Caesar — " and that 
not only for the sake of the commonwealth, but for 
the sake of Caesar, lest a stain from your despicable 
vileness should seem to rest on his worthy name. 
. . . Suppose that Caesar did break out into some 
excesses ; that the strain of conflict, his ambitious 
aspirations, his pre-eminent genius, his exalted birth, 
did hurry him into acts, to which we could submit 
at the time from such a man, and which should now 
be blotted from our minds by his glorious services 
meanwhile ; do you, rascal, dare to presume on the 
same forbearance? and shall we give ear to the 
voice of Vatinius, the pirate and the temple-robber, 
when he demands that the same privilege shall be 
extended to him as to Caesar? " * 

This argument was really sound, as regarded the 
past. Caesar as consul had done fearful mischief to 

* In VaU, 6, x$. 



56 B.C.] The Political Situation. 259 

Rome, but the Romans might well condone it in 
consideration of the splendid deeds of the proconsul. 
The doubt arose when men looked to the future. 
Caesar had shown himself utterly unscrupulous; he 
had trampled on all law and constitution. Could 
such a man be trusted with power? Would not the 
acquiescence in Caesar's supremacy mean the servi- 
tude of the commonwealth ? These anxieties, though 
but dimly felt, certainly affected the minds both of 
Cicero and Pompey at this time. Both of them were 
uneasy, and inclined to enter on lines of policy, likely 
to bring them into collision with Caesar. 

The relations of political parties were unsettled, 
and the position of Pompey in particular was doubt- 
ful and anxious. Towards the end of 

. March, 56 B.C. 

March Cicero writes to his brother: 
" Pompey is not what he was ; the mob are cool 
towards him on Milo's account, and the loyalists find 
much wanting and much to blame. My only objec- 
tion to Marcellinus " (consul for the year) " is that 
he handles Pompey too severely. The Senate how- 
ever is pleased to see it, and this makes me the more 
inclined to absent myself from the House, and main- 
tain an attitude of reserve. In the law-courts I am 
all that I ever was, and my levee is as thronged as in 
my best days." * 

In spite of all draw backs, Cicero was at this time 
very confident in his own strength. He writes to 
Quintus f : " In other respects my position is what 

*AdQ. F.y ii., 4, 5. The reference to the letters to Quintus is 
always to the corrected arrangement as given in Wesenberg's Teub- 
ner Edition, \Ad Q. F., ii., 3, 7. 



260 Cicero Attacks the Julian Laws. [56 B.C. 

you used to declare it would be, though I could never 
believe it, full of honour and influence ; these have 
been restored to me, my dear brother, and with me 
to yourself, by your patience, your courage, your de- 
votion, and your affection." The acquittal of Sestius 
confirmed him in this opinion. The tide of public 
feeling, which had borne him in triumph home, 
seemed still to be setting steadily in his favour. He 
thought himself able to take a stronger line in poli- 
tics ; and now, as before his exile, his main object 
was to draw Pompey over to the side of the consti- 
tution. He had marked Pompey 's distrust of Caesar, 
and he seems to have believed that the confederacy 
between them was fast breaking up. At any rate 
he was satisfied that Pompey would see without dis- 
pleasure an assault on the Julian legislation, and 
Cicero resolved to deliver that assault in person. 

The point selected for attack was the vexed ques- 
tion of the public lands in Campania.* It seems that 
Pompey's veterans had been provided for elsewhere, 
on lands acquired by purchase, and that this Cam- 
panian land was destined for distribution among the 
poor citizens.f Thus Pompey 's interests were not 
directly involved in upholding Caesar's law. At 
the end of the year 57, one of the tribunes, a sup- 
porter of Pompey, had mentioned the matter in a 
tentative way. % and now on the 5th of 
April Cicero brought it again to the 
notice of the Senate " which was as uproarious," he 
says, § "as if it had been a public meeting." On 

* See above p. 219. \ Ad Q. F. 9 ii., 1, 1. 

f Suetonius, JuL y 20. § Ad Q. F* % ii., 5, I. 



68 i,e.3 Campanian Land Question. 261 

Cicero's motion, it was resolved that the question 
should be submitted formally to the House by the 
consuls on the Ides of May. This was, as he after- 
wards said to Lentulus,* " to attack the enemy in 
the very heart of his position." 

Pompey showed no displeasure. On the 8th of 
April Cicero writes to his brother,f then acting as 
Pompey 's legate in Sardinia : " Yesterday I dined 
with Crassipes, and after dinner was carried in a lit- 
ter to Pompey 's garden. I had failed to catch him 
earlier in the day, as he was from home, and I wished 
to see him, because I was leaving Rome the next 
day, and he was bound for Sardinia. I found him at 
home, and begged him to let you come back as soon 
as possible. ' You shall have him immediately/ he 
replied. He was leaving, as he said, on the nth to 
embark either from Labro or from Pisa." Evidently 
Cicero told the truth to Lentulus two years later, 
when he said that Pompey left Rome without giving 
him a hint that he was offended by his line of action.^ 
But a bitter disappointment was in store. The events 
of the next few days completely altered the situation, 
and left Cicero in a painful and humiliating position. 

* Ad Fam., i., 9, 8. 
\AdQ.F.,\i. i 5,3. 
\ Ad Fam., i., 9, 9. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ROME AFTER THE CONFERENCE OF LUCA. 

56-52 B.C. 

^ESAR had spent the winter of 
57-56 B.C. in his southern 
provinces, Illyricum and Cis- 
alpine Gaul. A crisis was 
evidently at hand, and it was 
needful for him to be as near 
as possible to the capital " to 
set a form upon that in- 
digest." 

Towards the end of March 
he summoned Crassus to meet him at Ravenna. 
While they were consulting on the political situation 
the news arrived of Cicero's action in the matter of 
the Campanian land. The importance 
of this move was instantly manifest to 
Caesar. An offensive and defensive 
alliance between Pompey and Cicero seemed immi- 
nent, and the two, once united, would secure the 
adherence of the equestrian order and of the country- 
people of Italy Tf Pompey should support Cicero 

s£>2 




April 5, 
56 B.C. 



56 B.C.] Conference of Luca. 263 

in this first assault, the Nobles would probably 
attack the grant of a province to Csesar by the law of 
Vatinius. Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose candida- 
ture for next year's consulship seemed certain of suc- 
cess, openly declared his intention to propose Caesar's 
recall.* If then Caesar held his hand and allowed 
things to drift, they were likely to drift towards civil 
war, and for civil war he was not yet ready. Even 
at this moment news had arrived of fresh trouble in 
Gaul. The maritime people of the Veneti on the 
shores of the Bay of Biscay had massacred his com- 
missariat officers and had risen in arms. He must 
have time to complete and consolidate his conquests, 
and to obtain time he was willing to pay a heavy 
price. Considerations, other than those of ambition 
and expediency doubtless co-operated in making him 
anxious to find terms of agreement. "It is prob- 
able," as Mommsen remarks, " that Caesar hesitated 
to break the heart of his beloved daughter, who was 
sincerely attached to her husband ; in his soul there 
was room for much besides the statesman." 

The conference was adjourned to Luca, the south* 
ernmost point in Caesar's dominion, and thither 
Pompey was invited to come to meet his confeder- 
ates. This must have been about the middle of 
April. The assembly of these great 

\ T1 r April, 56 B.C. 

potentates was like a congress of sov- 
ereign princes. Caesar was attended by a great 
retinue of his officers. Roman politicians and 
place-hunters flocked to Luca, and provincial gov- 
ernors found the little town on the way to or from 
* Suetonius, Jul. , 24. 



264 Conference of Luca. [56 B.C. 

their posts. It is said that 120 lictors could be 
counted and 200 senators.* But no state or pa- 
geantry could adequately express the importance of 
this meeting between the three chiefs. If th^y could 
come to an agreement, their power was sufficienc to 
dispose of an Empire which was the civilised world. 

The terms which Caesar offered were so liberal that 
Pompey at once assented to them, and the bonds of 
the coalition were drawn closer than ever. As on the 
occasion of the first formation of the triumvirate, all 
that Pompey had been in vain endeavouring by pain- 
ful intrigues to extract from his natural allies the 
constitutionalists, was granted to him in a word by 
his magnificent rival. It was arranged that Pompey 
and Crassus should forget their differences, and be 
consuls together for the next year (55 B.C.). After 
their consulship, Crassus was to lead an expedition 
against Parthia, and Pompey was to have for five 
years the governorship of Spain, which, however, he 
might administer by means of lieutenants, while he 
remained at the head of affairs in Rome. In return, 
Caesar stipulated for an extension of five years in his 
command of the Gallic provinces, and for the defence 
at home of all the Acts of his consulship. 

To secure this last condition, it was necessary that 
Cicero should either be persuaded to renounce his 
opposition, or that he should again be driven into 
exile. Pompey, who had for his own purposes en- 
couraged Cicero to put himself in the fore-front of 
the battle, accepted the ungracious task of checking 
and humiliating him. Now, as two years before, 

* Plutarch, Pomp., 51, 2. 




mm 

mm 



56 B.C.] Cicero s Submission. 265 

Cicero found that the support of Pompey was not to 
be relied on. Pompey was far more scrupulous than 
Caesar, when it was a question of committing crimi- 
nal acts, but he had none of Caesar's delicacy where 
personal honour was concerned. He wanted the par- 
tisan loyalty, which made Caesar aver, "that if he 
had been obliged to use the help of cut-throats and 
foot-pads in maintaining his cause, even to them he 
would not fail in awarding a due recompense." * 
Cicero had all along served Pompey faithfully, but 
Pompey seems to have felt no remorse in using him 
and then dropping him, whenever it suited his own 
convenience. 

After the conference of Luca, Caesar once more 
turned his back on the intrigues of the capital, and 
hurried to meet his foes on the shores of the Atlan- 
tic. The details of the arrangement between the 
Three were kept a profound secret for the moment ; 
but that they had come to an arrangement was soon 
manifest. Pompey sent to Cicero a request, which 
was equivalent to an order, that he should suspend 
all action on the question of the Campanian land 
until he himself should return to Rome.f To Quin- 
tus Cicero whom he met immediately afterwards in 
Sardinia he expressed himself for once with an al- 
most brutal frankness : " ' You are the very man I 
want/ he said, ' nothing could be luckier ; unless 
you take pains to keep your brother Marcus straight, 
I shall hold you responsible for your pledges on his 
account/ To make a long story short, he com- 

* Suetonius, Jul., 72. 
f Ad Fam. t i., 9, IQ. 



266 After the Conference of Luca. [56 B.C. 

plained bitterly ; recounted the obligations under 
which he had laid us and his own stipulations and 
my brother's engagements as to Caesar's Acts, and 
appealed to my brother's own knowledge that all 
which he had done for my restoration had been 
done with Caesar's consent. By way of recom- 
mending Caesar's cause and dignity to me, he begged 
that I would not assail them, if I could not or would 
not defend them." * 

These announcements came as a crushing blow to 
Cicero. The ground on which he was taking his 
stand had shifted under his feet. On the Ides of 
May he absented himself from the Senate, and the 
discussion fell through. " As for the previous arrange- 
ment," he writes,f " that the question of the Cam- 
panian land was to be dealt with on the 15 th and 
16th, it was not dealt with. In this matter there is a 
stoppage in the current of my action." 

So far Cicero had no choice but to submit. But 
he had still to decide how to shape his general 
policy in view of the altered circumstances. The 
union, which he had been encouraged to attempt, of 
Pompey with the Nobles in defence of the constitu- 
tion against Caesar was now obviously impossible. 
Pompey was committed to an entirely different line 
of action. Lucullus was dead, and the Republic had 
no general but Pompey, so that it would have been 
madness to persist in words which could not be sup- 
ported by deeds. Cicero then must either continue 
to follow his old leader in this new departure, or else 

* Ad Fam. y i., 9, 9. 
f Ad Q. F. t ii., 6, 2. 



56 B.C.] Cicero s Submission. 267 

efface himself completely and sit down in silence and 
inactivity in company with the more obstinate of the 
Nobles. He would be obliged even to renounce his 
great position as leader of the Roman bar, for politics 
were ever intruding themselves into forensic con- 
tests. Such a sacrifice, had Cicero been prepared to 
make it, would perhaps have been the most honour- 
able, certainly it would have been the most dignified 
course. 

But it was doubtful whether he could count on a 
cordial reception from the Nobles, and still more 
doubtful whether they could or would afford him 
effective protection from Clodius and his other 
enemies. Cicero had been convinced all along that 
the Nobles had deserted him in his hour of peril, and 
now he was equally sure that they were jealous of 
him and would be glad to see him reduced to a non- 
entity ; as he had written to his friend soon after his 
return : " Those same men, my dear Atticus, who 
clipped my wings, are displeased to see them grow- 
ing again, for growing I hope they are."* Even 
during the last month, some of them had not been 
able to conceal their delight f that Cicero, who had 
so often supported Pompey against what they con- 
sidered the interests of the party, should now have 
incurred his displeasure and that of Caesar. Further 
the Nobles continued to abet Clodius, and by this 
conduct they forfeited, as Cicero thought, their claim 
to be considered the party of order \\ Pompey was 



* Ad Att., iv., 2, 5. 

f Ad Fam., L, 9, 10. 

% Ad Fam. , i., 7, 7, and 9, 17. 



i68 After the Conference of Luca. tea B.C. 

at least the enemy of his enemy.** Cicero feared 
likewise to compromise his brother's fortunes. Quin- 
tus had pledged himself for Cicero's good behaviour 
to Pompey, and Pompey had pledged himself to 
Caesar.f Should these pledges go unredeemed ? It 
was soon made clear to him that more was expected 
from him than a passive acquiescence in the su- 
premacy of the triumvirs, and that his active support 
would be welcomed, and recompensed with ample 
protection from his enemies and with at least out- 
ward deference and consideration. Cicero had now, 
as frequently before, grave reason to resent Pompey \s 
conduct ; but after all it was Pompey more than any 
one else who had restored him from his exile, and he 
dreaded the reproach of ingratitude. His instincts 
of personal loyalty bound him to his old chief, and 
on the whole he resolved to abide by him, even 
though his adherence involved the acceptance of the 
mild but inexorable yoke of Caesar. 

It was not without many misgivings and much up- 
braiding from his own conscience, that he came to 
this conclusion. He expresses these feelings very 
frankly soon after in a letter to Atticus % : " What is 
more degraded than the life which we are living — I 
especially ; for you, though you are a statesman by 
nature, yet have no bondage of your own to serve 
and have only your share in the national servitude. 
But I, who, if I speak as I ought, am reckoned for a 



* Ad Fam„ i., 9, 11, "meumque inimicum unum in civitate 
habuit inimicum."' 
f Ad Fam. % i., 9. 12. 
\ Ad Att., iv., 6, 2. 



56 B.C.] Cicero s Submission. 269 

madman ; if as I must, for a slave ; if I hold my peace, 
am accounted as crushed and baffled, how bitter 
should be my grief? So indeed it is, and all the 
more bitter because I cannot even grieve without 
seeming ungrateful. Well, can I rest on my oars, and 
take refuge in a haven of peace? Nay, the only 
haven that waits for us is a camp and a battle-field. 
Well, then I must submit to be a servant, I who re- 
fused to be one of the masters.* So it must be ; for 
this, I see, is your decision, and would that I had 
always hearkened to your advice. " 

Cicero's first action in the Senate on these new 
lines related to certain votes in favour of Caesar, 
which, though fully justified by the 

1 - . u % J a ' C June, 56 B.C. 

work which Caesar was now doing for 
Rome, were awkwardly inconsistent with the attack 
which had been contemplated on his position. 
Cicero describes these measures in very reserved 
language to Lentulus Spintherf: "You ask me 
about the political situation ; there is much conten- 
tion, but no struggle on equal terms. For those 
who have the advantage in resources, in arms and in 
power, seem to me through the folly and inconsist- 
ency of their opponents to have been given the ad- 
vantage in argument as well. So with very faint 
opposition they have obtained through the Senate 
what they never expected to obtain even through 
the People without revolution. With little or no 
trouble pay has been voted for Caesar's troops, ten 
lieutenants have been granted him, and in assigning 

* See above, p. 203. 
I Ad Fam. t i., 7, 10. 



27c After the Conference of Luca. [56 B.C. 

provinces under Gracchus' law,* it has been resolved 
that he shall not be susperseded. I tell my story 
briefly, for I take no pleasure in the present state 
of things." 

Cicero had himself given his voice in favour of a 
Thanksgiving of fifteen days for Caesar's victories, 
and for the other measures in his interest, which he 
recounted to Lentulus. The controversy whether 
the consuls of 55 B.C. were to succeed Caesar in his 
Gallic provinces was, if the combatants had known 
it, a mere beating of the air. The consulships for 
55 had been settled on Pompey and Crassus, and 
their future provinces determined for them at the 
conference of Luca, and Gaul had been entailed for 
years to come on Caesar, But all this was as yet a 
secret; and Cicero argued the question in June, 56, 
as if the Senate really had the disposal of the 
provinces. He urged that the provinces named 
should be Syria and Macedonia, in order that his 
enemies, Gabinius and Piso, might be recalled from 
their posts, and he protested against any scheme 
which should cut short Caesar's career of conquest. 

Cicero's speech has been preserved to us under 
the title De Provinciis Consular ibus. The orator 
cannot avoid some reference to Caesar's Acts in his 
consulship, but he touches the painful subject as 
lightly as possible, taking refuge in a somewhat 
weak argumentum ad hominem. Those who wished 
to set them aside were the same men who now 
acknowledged as valid the laws of Clodius' tribunate. 

* By this law the Senate was obliged before the election of next 
year's consuls to decide what provinces should be assigned to them. 



56 B.C.] Speech on Consular Provinces. 271 

Yet the adoption of Clodius was one of Caesar's 
Acts, and if they were cancelled then Clodius was a 
patrician and therefore no tribune. " You must 
permit me to decline an inquisition into the title of 
useful measures, when you refuse such an inquisition 
in the case of most mischievous ones/' * Cicero is 
more successful when he tells the story of his per- 
sonal relations with Caesar, and justifies his full re- 
conciliation. Their early friendship, Caesar's flattering 
offers of alliance when consul, his co-operation with 
Pompey in Cicero's restoration, — all authorise him to 
forget and forgive, even if he has some grievances 
to complain of in the matter of his exile.f Above 
all, is he not bound to lay aside private resentments 
when recommending what is for the good of the 
State? Caesar is no longer the turbulent demagogue 
of the capital, but the champion of the Roman 
State ; he is now bound to the Senate by the extra- 
ordinary honours which it has conferred on him, and 
it is folly to alienate him by petty attacks. " I do 
not pretend to penetrate into any man's intentions 
in the future ; but I know what I hope. It is my 
duty as a senator to secure to the best of my 
power that no eminent or powerful man shall have 
just ground for complaint against this House ; 
and this, even if I were Caesar's bitterest enemy, 
I should maintain for the good of the common* 
wealth." % 



* De Prov. Cons., 19, 46. 
f De Prov. Cons., 17 and 18. 
\ De Prov. Cons., 16, 39. 



272 After the Conference of Luca. [56 B.C. 

In setting forth the recent services, on which 
Caesar rests his claims to the consideration of the 
Senate, Cicero has a theme worthy of his eloquence. 
Here there is no need for hesitation or apology. 
" He has striven on glorious battle-fields with the 
fierce tribes and mighty hosts of Germania and 
Helvetia ; the rest he has terrified, checked, and 
tamed, and taught them to obey the commands of 
the Roman People. Over regions and nations which 
no book, no traveller, no report had made known to 
us, our general, our soldiers, and the arms of the 
Roman People have found a way. It was but a 
strip of Gaul that we held before, Senators ; the rest 
was occupied by tribes, enemies of our rule or rebels 
against it, or by men unknown to us, or known only 
as dangerous, savage, and warlike. Every one 
desired that these tribes should be broken and sub- 
dued ; from the first days of our empire there never 
has been a prudent statesman who did not recognise 
that Gaul was the great danger to our State. But 
owing to the might and multitude of those races we 
never before ventured to try conclusions with them 
as a nation. It was always we that were the chal- 
lenged, and we fought only on the defensive. Now 
at length we have reached the consummation that 
our empire extends to the utmost limits of that 
land. Not without the Providence of Heaven 
nature piled the Alps to be a rampart to Italy. For 
if that approach had lain open to the fierce hordes 
of Gaul, never would this city have survived to be 
the seat and home of sovereignty. Now let them 
sink in the earth ! for beyond those mountain peaks 



56 B.C.] Speech on Consular Provinces. 273 

as far as the extremest verge of ocean there is 
nothing left for Italy to fear/' * 

Cicero forthwith published this splendid oration. 
As a master-piece of his art, he might well be proud 
of it ; but as marking definitely his submission to 
the Triumvirate, the " recantation," as he called it, 
caused him shame and self-reproach. " What is this 
you say," he writes to Atticus,f " do you think that 
there is any one by whom I wish my works to be 
read and approved rather than by yourself ? Why 
then did I send it to any one else first? Well, 
I was pressed by the person to whom I sent it, and 
I had not another copy ; and besides — I keep nibbling 
round what I have got to swallow — this recantation 
seemed to me to be somewhat discreditable. But a 
long good night to the thorough downright honest 
policy. It is incredible what treachery I find in 
these noble chiefs,:}: as they wish to be, and as they 
might be if they had any loyalty. I felt and knew 
how I had been led on by them and then deserted 
and tossed aside; still my hope was that I might 
work together with them in politics. But no, they 
were the same as ever, and by the aid of your moni- 
tions I have at last come to my senses. 
Let us finish with them. Since those, who have no 
power, will none of my love, let me take care that 
those who have the power § shall love me. You will 

* De Prov. Cons., 13, 33 seq. 

f Ad. Att., iv., 5. 

\ I. e. t Hortensius, Bibulus, Domitius, and other leaders of the 

optimate party. 

§ /. e, , The triumvirs. 
18 



274 After the Confere?ice of Luca. [55 B.C. 

say, * I only wish you had thought of this before * ; I 
know that you wished it, and that I have been a 
downright ass." 

The reconstitution of the triumvirate was followed 
by a period of quiet at Rome, and the State moved 
along the lines which the Three had traced for it. 
Pompey and Crassus were consuls in 55 B.C., and 
each of the confederates received the provincial 
command for which he had stipulated. The union 
between them seemed now absolutely re-established, 
and Cicero did not at this time appreciate how hol- 
low the alliance necessarily was. In this settlement, 
which left Pompey for the moment the acknowledged 
head of the State, Cicero believed that 
he was obliged to acquiesce. Early in 
the year 55 he writes to Lentulus* : " The State lies 
beyond question in the power of our friends, and 
that so absolutely that it is unlikely that this gen- 
eration will see any change in the situation. I sub- 
ordinate my action to the wishes of the man whom I 
am bound in honour not to oppose; and I am not 
playing the hypocrite in this, as some fancy ; for 
such is my earnestness in Pompey 's cause, and such 
my devotion to him, that they have power to make 
his interests and wishes seem to me all that is right. 
To my mind, even his opponents would not do 
wrong if, feeling themselves to be no match for him, 
they were now to desist from contending. 
Peace is the best we can hope for now, and that the 
present rulers seem likely to secure us, if men will 
submit patiently to their domination. As for my 

* Ad. Fam. t i., 8, 1-4. 



55 B.C.] Rule of the Triumvirs. 275 

old consular dignity of a brave and consistent sena- 
tor, there is no use thinking of that ; it has been lost, 
all through the fault of those who estranged from 
the Senate that order which would have been their 
best friend, and that man who would have been their 
most glorious champion/'* 

We hear little of Clodius at this time ; probably 
he had received notice from Caesar that he must not 
disturb the peace. At any rate we find that Cicero 
was able to be reconciled with two of Clodius' chief 
backers, his brother Appius and Crassus, the third 
member of the triumvirate. In the latter case a 
renunciation of their long-standing feud was pressed 
upon both of them by Pompey and Caesar, and was 
rendered the easier by the mediation of young 
Publius Crassus,f then as always a devoted friend of 
Cicero. With all his violence of expression Cicero 
was of a very placable nature, and found it almost 
impossible to refuse a hand which was held out to 
him. In the matter of Crassus, he says to Lentulus,J 
" I obeyed the call not only of expediency, but of 
my own disposition. " Immediately 
before his departure for the East Cras- 
sus accepted an invitation to dinner from Cicero in 
the gardens of his son-in-law Crassipes, " so that he 
started for his province almost from my hearth- 
stone." 

During the year 54, no great change occurred in 

* 7. e. y The Knights and Pompey. 

\Ad, Q. K, ii.,7, 2. 

% Ad, Fam. y i., 9, 20. The reconciliation did not alter Cicero's 
opinion of Crassus* character, ' ' What a rascal it is ! " he exclaims in 
» confidential letter {Ad. Att. y iv., 13, 2) immediately afterwards. 



276 After the Conference of Luca. [54 B e G. 

the situation. Caesar was still fighting hard in Gaul, 
Pompey ruling, as best he could, at home* Through- 
out a long letter of explanation to 
Lentulus, written in this year, Cicero 
refers to the supremacy of Pompey in the State as 
the central fact in the situation, and he seems entirely 
to have forgotten that this supremacy might come 
to be challenged by Caesar. 

To maintain for any length of time good order in 
Rome was beyond Pompey's power. The elections 
were not only scandalously corrupt,* but so turbulent 
that year after year had to begin with an " interreg- 
num/' because no consuls could be chosen at the 
proper time. A painful accident occurring at one of 
these scenes of tumult had serious consequences in 
the future. Some one standing near to Pompey was 
struck by a stone or a bludgeon, and Pompey's gown 
was bespattered with blood. The gown was carried 
home, and unhappily met the eye of his young wife. 
The shock of the sight occasioned a miscarriage, from 
the effect of which Julia never recovered, and her 
death some months later severed one of the main 
bonds which united Caesar and Pompey. 

The glimpses which we get of the law-courts at this 

time do not give a high idea of the administration of 

justice. " Now for the news of Rome. 

54. B.C. 

On the 5th of July Sufenas and Caius 
Cato were acquitted, and Procilius convicted ; from 

* In the year 54 B.C. the rate of interest rose from four to eight per 
cent., owing to the demand for ready money to be spent in bribery ; 
;£ioo,ooo was promised for the vote of the first century : Scaurus, 
who came rather late into the field, is reported " to have satisfied the 
electors tribe by tribe at his house," and so forth. 



54 B.C.] Condition of Rome. 277 

which we may gather that our potent, grave, and 
reverend signors do not care a straw for bribery, for 
the elections, for the interregnum, for treason, nor 
for the safety of the whole commonwealth, but that 
we must draw the line at killing householders in their 
own homes ; they do not appear to be very sure about 
that either, for 22 voted not-guilty against 29. Clodius, 
who prosecuted, roused the feelings of the jury by a 
peroration which was certainly fine. Hortensius was 
for the defence in his usual style. I did not open my 
lips ; for my little girl, who is now near her time, was 
nervous about me, and would not have me cross 
Clodius* path." * 

Whatever may have been the alarms in which 
Tullia was privileged to indulge, her father had not 
much to fear from Glodius, so long as he kept on 
good terms with the triumvirs. Shortly 
before this, he had written in answer to u y ' M 
his brother's inquiries f : " Your question comes to 
this ; what sort of year is before me? Well I think 
that it will be one of complete peace, or at least that 
I have ample protection. My levee, the Forum, and 
the expressions of feeling in the theatre give 
daily evidence of this ; my friends are free from 
anxiety knowing the forces I have at command in 
the support of Caesar and Pompey. All this makes 
me confident; but if any outburst of that mad 
fellow should occur, everything is prepared to crush 
him/' 

As an advocate Cicero reigned pre-eminent. He 

* Ad Att. 9 iv., 15, 4. 
f Ad Q. F. % ii., 14, 2. 



2 78 After the Conference of Luca. [54 B.C. 

was in urgent request for every important case, and 
he tells his brother that he was never before so 
pressed with business. " In your last letter," he 
adds,* "as frequently before, you cheer me on to 
fresh exertions and fresh ambitions. I will do as you 
wish ; but O when shall I find time to live?" 

Of the cases in which Cicero was engaged at this 
time, one must have given him great satisfaction. 
His old friend Plancius, the same who had sheltered 
him in his exile, was elected aedile and then, almost 
as a matter of course, put on his trial for his pro- 
ceedings during the election. Cicero delivered in his 
behalf an admirable speech (from which I have had 
occasion to quote freely f ) and procured an acquittal. 

Other briefs Cicero was obliged to undertake, not 
because he wished them, but because he could not 
refuse his powerful friends. The most notable cases 
were those of two objects of his former vituperations, 
Vatinius and Gabinius. Of the first he says^: that 
it was an easy business. Pompey had patched up a 
reconciliation between them, and Caesar had earnestly 
pressed him to undertake the defence. Vatinius was 
an unscrupulous but amusing and good-humoured 
rascal, who disarmed hostility § by making fun of his 
own physical deformities and moral obliquities. He 
was acquitted, and lived to show Cicero much kind- 
ness I after the battle of Pharsalia, and to beg the 



* Ad Q. F. y iii., I, 12. 
I See pp. 7, 22, 94, 108. 
% Ad Q. >., ii., 15, 3. 

§ Seneca de Const. Sap., 17, 3, and Cicero in Vat,, 17, 41. 
\Ad Att., xi., 5, 4. 



54 B.C.] Defence of Gabinius. 279 

favour of Cicero's advocacy of his interests again 
later on.* 

It was much more painful to Cicero to have to de- 
fend Gabinius, the man who had sold him to Clodius, 
and who had shared with his colleague Piso and with 
Clodius himself Cicero's extremest hatred. There 
were several accusations against Gabinius, but the 
most serious was for treason in having quitted his 
province without leave to restore the King of Egypt 
(see p. 252). Cicero was one of the witnesses against 
him at the first trial, but he declined to prosecute out 
of regard for Pompey. Gabinius was very humble 
now to Cicero ; he refused to cross-examine him at 
the trial, professed gratitude for his forbearance, and 
said that, if he were permitted to retain his place in 
the State, he would one day make amends for the 
injuries he had done him.f Pompey, while begging 
Cicero to undertake the defence at a second trial for 
extortion, acknowledged that he could ask the favour 
only supposing that Gabinius made atonement for 
his conduct.^: What Gabinius said or did to satisfy 
him, we are not informed : but Cicero after holding 
out for some time longer yielded at last. This second 
trial took place before the stern bar of Cato,§ and all 
the exertions of Cicero and all the influence of Pom- 
pey were unable to procure a verdict. The result 
was very damaging to Pompey, especially following 



* Ad Fam^ v., 9. 
\AdQ. A,iii.,4, 3- 

% Ad Att, y iv., 18, 1. The references in the fourth book of the 
Letters to Atticus are to Wesenberg's Teubner edition. 
§AdQ.F.,m. t i, 15. 



280 After the Confer ence of Luca. [54 b.c. 

as it did on the acquittal of Vatinius. Pompey had 
failed, where Caesar had succeeded, in saving from 
ruin a partisan, whose sole virtue was that he had 
been a zealous and useful servant to his chief. 
Gabinius judged that so ineffective a master had 
best be deserted, and when the Civil War came, he 
no less than Vatinius was to be found on the side of 
Caesar. Cicero never really forgave himself for his 
pliancy on this occasion. " Why," he writes in the 
bitterness of his heart five years later — " why should 
I take account of my enemies? there are friends of 
mine, men whom I have defended at the bar, whom 
I cannot see in the Senate-house without pain, nor 
associate with them without disgrace. ,, * 

During the years following the conference of Luca, 
Caesar was untiring in his efforts to win the regard of 
Cicero, and to unite him to himself by every bond 
of personal and political friendship. There was no 
fear lest Cicero should forget that Caesar could deal 
heavy blows, if he were so minded ; and now no op- 
portunity was lost to impress him with the conviction, 
that Caesar had been driven to strike against his will, 
and that his earnest desire was for cordial and intimate 
alliance. Caesar never failed where good breeding was 
required, and he courted the restored exile with a 
delicacy and a geniality which strongly affected him. 
" Never does the slightest word of mine pass in 
Caesar's cause, to say nothing of acts, without his 
acknowledging it with such a distinguished courtesy 
that I cannot but feel myself bound to him." f Caesar 

* A<tAtt. t x., 8, 3. 
f Ad Fam. % i. f 9, 21. 



54 B.C.I Ccesar and Cicero. 281 

pressed him to recommend to his care any friends 
who wished for an opening in his province, and these 
he always treated with such marked favour as to 
make them feel that Cicero's request was all-power- 
ful with him. He would not hear a word of thanks : 
" As for Mescinius Rufus, whom you mentioned 
to me, I will make him King of Gaul if you please, 
or else you may hand him over to Lepta, and send 
me some one else to make much of." * When Clodius 
wrote to Caesar with some calumnies against Cicero, 
Caesar showed his contempt by not answering the 
letter,f and he took care that this should come to 
Cicero's ears. In the embarrassments which resulted 
from Cicero's building operations, Caesar freely ac- 
commodated him with loans of money. To Cicero 
likewise in conjunction with his own confidential 
agent Oppius he entrusted the spending of great 
sums on the erection of public buildings and the 
adornment of the city. We find that they put up a 
town-hall \ on the Campus Martius and marble poll- 
ing-places on the same spot. The Forum was also 
enlarged at a cost of ^600,000. Cicero was much 
pleased at the compliment conveyed by this honour- 
able commission. It was entrusted, as he writes to 
Atticus,§ " to Caesar's friends, Oppius and myself — 
yes, you may fret and fume — I say, to Caesar's 
friends." 



* Ad Fam.y vii., 5, 2. 
\AdQ. F„ iii., 1, 11. 

% This villa publico, seems to have been used chiefly for the business 
of the census. 

%Ad 4tU, iv., 16, 8. 



282 After the Conference of Luca. [54 b.c. 

Above all Caesar approached Cicero on his most 
sensitive side by constant kindness and attention to 
his brother Quintus, who was now serv- 
ing as lieutenant-general in Gaul. The 
two were together in Britain during the summer of 54 
B.C., and when the troops went into winter camps, 
the choice of quarters was allowed to Quintus, who 
selected the territory of the Nervii, one of the Bel- 
gic tribes. The younger Cicero was a brave and skilful 
officer. By a sudden rising the Gauls overwhelmed 
one division of the Roman army, and they next 
made a furious attack on the isolated station of 
Quintus. The whole country was in arms, and it 
was long before a messenger could get through to 
Caesar. Quintus Cicero defended his post with un- 
wearied though almost desperate valour. It was like 
the stand made at Lucknow after the disaster of 
Cawnpore in the Indian mutiny. When the relieving 
force, led by Caesar in person, at length appeared, the 
Roman eagle still crowned the camp of Cicero's le- 
gion, but of those who had kept it so well nine out 
of ten were either killed or wounded. 

Caesar's reception of the first proposal that Quintus 
should serve under him, gives a characteristic picture 
both of the man and of the situation.* Marcus 
Cicero had, it appears, written to Caesar to make the 
offer of his brother's services. The mail in which 
this offer was conveyed got soaked on the road and 
Cicero's letter was reduced to such a state of pulp, 
that it could not even be recognised for his. For- 
tunately a letter of Balbus in the same packet had 



* AdQ. F. y ii., 10,4. 




o 

t 

a. 
< 

o 

UJ 

I 

*~ o 

o 8 

-J <s 
o w 

I 

UJ 

I 

co 

UJ 

I 
H 



54 B.C.] Ccesar and Cicero. 283 

not fared quite so badly. Caesar was able to read a 
few words of it, and wrote in reply as follows : " I 
see that you have written something about Cicero ; 
I could not make it all out, but so far as I can 
decipher the meaning it was something so good that 
I could wish for it, but hardly hope for it." On re- 
ceiving another copy, Caesar joyfully accepted the 
proposal, modestly, however, warning Cicero that 
he feared his brother would be disappointed if he 
expected he was coming to a rich province. 

Cicero was not the man to resist such constant 
and flattering attentions. He was completely dazzled 
alike by the splendour of Caesar's exploits, and by 
the friendship which he displayed towards himself. 
To his brother in Caesar's camp he expresses himself 
very warmly. " I have taken Caesar to my bosom 
and will never let him slip." * " Like a belated 
traveller, I must make up for lost time. I have 
been too much behindhand in availing myself of 
his friendship ; now I will put my best foot for- 
ward." f "I can have no reserve when I deal w T ith 
Caesar. He comes next to you and to our children 
in my affection, and not far behind." % Perhaps it is 
not safe to take these letters, which were to travel 
in Caesar's despatch-boxes, as absolutely confiden- 
tial. § But even in the letters to Atticus, " in which 

* Ad Q. F., ii., 11, 1. 

f Ad Q. F. t ii., 13, 2. 

\ Ad Q. F, iii., i, 18. 

§ Cicero believed that his letters might be opened and read on the 
road (Ad Q. F. y iii., I, 21, and 8, 2, and 9, 3). The Romans were 
not very exact in their code of honour in this matter. Cicero several 
times opened letters of members of his family under circumstances 
which would not to our notions justify the action. 



284 After the Conference of Luca. [54 B.C. 

there are so many confidences, that we do not trust 
even our secretaries for fear anything should get 
wind/' * there is not a hint that any distrust of 
Caesar survives. " One thing," he writes, " at any 
rate I have gained, that I have full evidence of 
Caesar's esteem and affection " f ; and again: "The 
delightful friendship with Caesar is the one plank 
saved from my shipwreck, which gives me real 
pleasure. Just see with what honour, consideration, 
and favour he treats our dear Quintus ! Good 
Heavens ! I could do no more, if I were commander- 
in-chief myself." % 

Though he is thus appreciative of Caesar's personal 

charm, which blinds him for the moment to the 

dangers which the commonwealth has to fear from 

him, it must not be supposed that Cicero does not 

feel keenly the destruction of his old 

0**t £A "R C* 

ideals. " We have lost, my dear Atti- 
cus, not only the blood and substance but the very 
outward hue and complexion of the State as it 
used to be. There is no Republic left which can 
give me any pleasure or on which my eye can rest 
with satisfaction. l And do you take that so easily?' 
you will say. Well yes, even that. . . . The 
place in my heart, where resentment used to dwell, 
has grown callous." § 

In the year 53 B.C. occurred the destruction of 



*AdAtt., iv., 17, I. 
f Ad Att. y iv., 15, 10. 
X Ad Att., iv., 19, 2. 
§ Ad Atl.i iv., 18, 2. 



53 B.C.] Dissolution of the Triumvirate. 285 

Crassus and his army in Mesopotamia. This disaster 
entailed on the Romans much anxiety 

ca B C 

for the safety of the eastern portion of 
their empire. But the external danger passed away 
without serious consequences, and the death of 
Crassus was important chiefly as it "affected the 
situation of Roman leaders and Roman parties. 
For Caesar it was a most untoward event ; it de- 
prived him of a reserved force on whose co-opera- 
tion he might rely in case of a civil war with Pompey. 
To such an issue the Roman factions were now 
slowly but surely drifting. Pompey was becoming 
thoroughly alarmed at the growing power and great 
position of Caesar, and the leaders of the optimate 
party now, when it was too late, began to open their 
eyes to the true state of the case. They recognised 
that they had taken fright in the wrong direction, 
and that the only chance for the Republic was 
staked on the sword of the man whom they had 
opposed and distrusted for the last twenty years. 
Pompey on his side was glad to draw towards that 
party to which his nature and aspirations would 
always have attached him, if he had not been kept 
aloof by the folly of its leaders. He marked his new 
departure by declining Caesar's offer of the hand of 
his niece Octavia, and by arranging a marriage with 
Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Metellus, one of the 
chief men of the optimate party. 

A gap of two years and a half occurs at this 
period in the correspondence between Cicero and 
Atticus. From the end of the year 54 B.C. onwards 
the two appear to have been constantly together in 



286 Death of Clodius. [53 b.c. 

Rome. We cannot, therefore, trace the opinions of 
Cicero on the altered situation, and do not even 
know how far he was admitted to share the counsels 
of the Optimates or of Pompey. 

Milo was candidate for the consulship during the 
year 53 B.C., and Clodius for the praetorship, 
and the two heartily renewed their old faction- 
fights. Pompey's destined father-in-law, Scipio 
Metellus, was in competition with Milo, and 
this circumstance now inclined Pompey to favour 
Clodius. Bribery and intimidation were carried on 
to a reckless extent on both sides. No election 
could be held, and the next year began 
as usual with an interregnum. Milo 
and Clodius roamed the streets, each with his armed 
gang, and leaders and followers alike carried their 
lives in their hands. 

On the evening of the 17th of January, 52 B.C., 
the two came into collision on the Appian Way, 
some ten miles from Rome. The victory in this 
" Battle of Bovillae " remained with Milo, and 
Clodius was left dead on the road. The body was 
found the same night and conveyed to the city. 
The death of Clodius caused intense excitement 
amongst the lowest classes in Rome. The corpse 
was seized upon and burned by a tumultuous mob 
in the Forum. By accident or design the flames 
spread and destroyed the Curia Hostilia, the 
ordinary meeting-place of the Senate. Stormy dis- 
cussions ensued in the House ; Milo was fiercely at- 
tacked by the kinsmen of Clodius, and was defended 
with equal vigour by Cicero, Cato, and Marcus 




co 



n 
l- 

u. 
o 
co 

z 



52 B.C.] Pompey Sole Consul. 287 

Marcellus. The tribunes were divided between the 
one party and the other. 

Rome now looked to Pompey as the only man 
capable of restoring order. The Senate issued its 
proclamation of martial law, and as there were no 
consuls to whom it could be addressed, the mandate 
ran "that the interrex and the tribunes of the plebs 
and the proconsul Cnaeus Pompeius should see to it 
that the State took no harm/' Finally the recon- 
ciliation of Pompey with the Optimates was sealed 
by a decree, proposed by Bibulus and assented to by 
Cato, that Pompey should be elected sole consul. 
This recommendation was carried out by the interrex 
and the assembly of the People, and Pompey assumed 
a position resembling that of the dictator in the Old 
Republic. His first care was to enlist a strong body 
of troops. He next passed severe and retrospective 
laws against rioting and electoral corruption, and 
provided a machinery for trials under them, by 
which the bribing of a jury was made almost im- 
possible. 

Milo was speedily arraigned. The most damning 
charge against him was that, after Clodius had been 
wounded and carried into a house, Milo had caused 
him to be dragged forth and despatched.* This 
accusation is not noticed in Cicero's speech, but the 
verdict of the jury makes it highly probable that it 
was true.f The Forum was occupied during the 
trial by armed guards, and the consul himself took 

* Asconius In Milonianam. 

\ ' ' For more than two years Milo had been * looking for Clodius,' 
as they say in Texas " (Tyrrell). See above p. 255. 



288 Trial of Milo. [52 B.C. 

his station with a strong reserve force at the door of 
the treasury of Saturn which overlooked the court. 
These precautions seem to have been absolutely 
necessary to preserve order, and we cannot fairly 
accuse Pompey, though his own wishes were against 
the prisoner, of attempting to coerce the jury. 
Cicero, who had throughout been unremitting in his 
exertions, and who owed Milo a debt of gratitude 
for many deeds of faithful partisanship, was sole 
counsel for the defence. It must have been a bitter 
disappointment to him that this speech was a failure. 
His nerve broke down in the presence of the drawn 
swords of the soldiers, and of the intense excitement 
of the by-standers. Perhaps likewise his great 
anxiety for success on this supreme occasion defeated 
its own object. Asconius tells us that the speech 
which he actually delivered was taken down by 
shorthand writers, and that it differed widely from 
the magnificent oration which he afterwards wrote 
out and published. When Cicero sent a copy to 
Milo in his exile, Milo is reported * to have said : 
" It is just as well that Cicero did not succeed in 
delivering this speech, or I should never have known 
the taste of these excellent mullets of Massilia." 

Milo's name lives in those splendid pages; but 
probably Rome was well rid of him, as well as 
of Clodius. Cicero, to prove that Milo had no 
interest in killing Clodius, urges that while he lived 
Milo was a necessary man. Now he is dead, Milo's 
importance is diminished. "The killing was unin- 
tentional," he says, "and we can only thank the 

* Dio Cassius, xl., 54. 



52 B.C.] Pompey Sole Consul. 289 

Providence which made Clodius lay an ambush to 
attack so brave a man as Milo ; but every one of 
you must breathe more freely now that this ruffian 
is removed from your path ; will you then bless the 
deed and yet punish the doer ? " The jurors appear 
to have argued differently. The two had held each 
other in check, but the survivor would be intolerable ; 
Milo's occupation was gone, and they judged that 
he had better go too. 

Cicero could not save Milo, but he procured the 
acquittal of Saufeius, Milo's comrade in the fight, 
and when he brought to the bar Munatius Bursa, 
who had taken a leading part in the riotous proceed- 
ings after Clodius' death, the jury convicted in spite 
of the efforts of Pompey on his behalf. " They 
were brave citizens/' writes Cicero to his friend 
Marius,* " who dared convict him against all the in- 
fluence of the man who had selected them as jurors. 
They would not have done it, if they had not made 
my indignation their own." 

Throughout the year 52, though still professedly 
acting as Caesar's associate, Pompey was passing 
laws which were in reality framed to 

' 5a B.C. 

work against Caesar's interests. It was 
of vital importance to Caesar that he should be able 
to hold on to his province and army until he 
should enter on a second consulship. Pompey and 
the Optimates, while granting all his specific 
demands, proceeded so to arrange the order of suc- 
cession to the provincial governorships as to deprive 
him of his legitimate expectations. Thus the ground 

* Ad Fam. t vii., 2, 3. 
*9 



290 After the Conference of Luca. [52 B.C. 

was prepared for a dispute, which was destined to 
end in civil war. Meantime the new arrangements 
about the provinces necessitated the acceptance by 
Cicero of the governorship of Cilicia, for which he 
set out in the spring of the year 51 B.C. 

The death of the younger Crassus, who fell fight- 
ing bravely by his father's side against the Parthians, 
occasioned a vacancy in a plebeian stall of the college 
of augurs, and Cicero was elected to fill the place. 
The augurship always had an attraction for him,* and 
in his political writings of this time, the power and 
dignity of his new office are dwelt on with evident 
satisfaction. 

In his private affairs we find Cicero at one time much 
embarrassed, owing to the plunder and destruction 
of his houses by Clodius. He had to borrow freely 
to meet the expenses of building and furnishing. 
As early as the year 54 B.C. he seems to be pretty free 
from these difficulties. " Very little is now want- 
ing/' he writes to Quintus, f " for my habits of life 
are simple, and I shall have no difficulty in meeting 
what calls remain if only I keep my health." His 
debt to Caesar however was still owing, and his let- 
ters to Atticus in 51 B.C. are full of instructions as to 
its discharge. In view of the political complications 
which were likely to arise between Caesar and the 
Senate, Cicero felt it necessary for his own freedom 
of action that he should no longer be Caesar's 
debtor. 

Cicero's son and nephew were passing through 

* See above p. 218. 
\ AdQ. F., ii., 14, 3. 



55 B.C.] Dialogue " De Oratore" 291 

their boyhood during these years, and he was much 
interested in their education. Tullia, whose first 
husband, Piso, had died during Cicero's banishment, 
was again married in the year 56 B.C. to. Furius Cras- 
sipes, but divorced before Cicero left Rome for his 
province in 51 B.C. About the same time Atticus 
married a lady named Pilia. She and Tullia were 
warm friends, and kind messages to and fro occur 
frequently in the letters. We hear not a word of 
Terentia in these five years. " Other matters are 
vexing me," writes Cicero on one occasion,* " but 
they are too private for a letter. My brother and my 
daughter are full of affection for me." The ominous 
silence as to his wife in this sentence seems to point 
to the beginning of the estrangement which led at 
last to a divorce. 

Before finishing the story of Cicero's residence in 
Rome since his banishment, we must look back at 
his literary labours during this period. In the year 
55 B.C. he was engaged on one of the most delight, 
ful of his creations, the dialogue De Oratore, The 
scene is laid during the last days (91 B.C.) of the life 
of Lucius Crassus, the foremost orator of the gene- 
ration before Cicero. The second person of the 
dialogue is Antonius, the great rival of Crassus, and 
the minor parts are taken by the younger statesmen 
of the day ; Cicero's old master, Scaevola the augur, 
appears in the opening scene, but like the aged Ceph- 
alus in Plato's Republic^ he soon retires. The 
technical discussions in this book are admirably in- 

* Ad Att. y iv., 2, 7. 

\AdAtU, iv., 16, 3. 



292 After the Conference of Luca. [54 B.C. 

terwoven with anecdote and conversation, and in 
charm and interest the work is only inferior to a dia- 
logue of Plato. 

The distraction of literary composition gave Cicero 
some relief from his drudgery in the law-courts, and 
some consolation in his disgust at the political situa- 
tion. During a holiday at Puteoli, where probably 
the greater part of the De Oratore was planned, we 
find him writing to Atticus * : " Here I am feasting 
in Faustus Sulla's library. Don't suppose I mean 
on the oysters of the Lucrine — not that they are want- 
ing. But the truth is that in proportion as my taste 
for all other pleasures is spoiled by grief for the 
commonwealth, I find myself more and more de- 
pendent on literature for support and comfort/' 

Cicero's next effort was in the direction of political 
philosophy. In May 54 B.C., he begs Atticus to 
give him the run of his library during his absence. 
He wishes particularly to consult some writings of 
Varro, " for the purpose of the work which I have in 
hand and which I think will give you pleasure." f 
This work was that which afterwards developed into 
the two treatises on The Commonwealth, and on The 
Laws, We gather \ that Cicero had at first written 
nine books of the dialogues of Scipio and his friends. 
Afterwards he cut off the last three books and 
made them the nucleus of the separate treatise 
entitled The Laws, in which he drops his histori- 
cal personages and makes Atticus, Quintus, and 



* Ad Ati. y iv., 10, I. 
f Ad Ait., iv., 14, I. 
%AdQ. F. t ii\. 9 5, I. 



54 B.C.] " The Commonwealth." 293 

himself the speakers. In this latter dialogue he 
repeatedly refers to the outlines of the State laid 
down by Scipio in the former treatise as supplying 
the principles on which he is working, and the two 
must undoubtedly be^4aken together as portions of 
the same task. Only fragments of the later and 
more important books of The Commonwealth sur- 
vive ; but it is clear that after describing the un- 
mixed forms of government, which he considers to 
be all unsatisfactory, monarchy being the best of 
them, Scipio is made to decide in favour of a mixed 
constitution, such as he conceives that of Rome to 
be. In The Laws, accordingly, we find even the 
most perverse details of the Roman constitution 
preserved. Cicero has much to say of the duties 
of a statesman, but he seems blind to the faults in 
the machinery of government. His methods of 
reasoning are those of the Greek philosophers, his 
conclusions those of a Roman statesman with all a 
Roman's limitations. The experience of the world 
has silently worked out the problem which the great- 
est men of antiquity could not solve. Caesar and 
Cicero were the " least mortal minds " of Republican 
Rome, yet neither of them conceived it as possible, 
that not only a free city could be organised but a 
free nation. 

We can gather little from these treatises regarding 
Cicero's opinion on the questions before the world 
at the moment when he wrote. It has been sup- 
posed indeed that in the fragments of the fifth book 
of The Commonwealth, the picture of the " princeps," 
" the guide of the State/' " the director of the Com- 



294 After the Conference of Luca. [54 B.C. 

monwealth," is meant to indicate that a place might 
be found in Rome for a kind of monarchical power, 
to be exercised by Pompey. It is clear, however, 
from the account of the magistracies in the third 
book of The Laws, that no extraordinary authority, 
like that established by Augustus in the next gene- 
ration, was contemplated in Cicero's Republic. The 
character drawn, so far as we can judge from the few 
lines that remain, seems to be only that of the " best 
citizen/' the ideal statesman,* who guides a free 
commonwealth by his advice and influence. It was 
a part which might have been played by Pompey or 
by Caesar or by Cicero himself, or even by all three 
at once. 



* When St. Augustine {de Civ. Die, v., 13) applies to this passage 
of Cicero the words " ubi loquitur de instituendo principe civitatis," 
it is clear from the context that " instituere " is to be taken not in 
the sense of "set up," "institute," but in the sense of "form," 
"train," "educate." Cicero must have been describing how the 
ideal statesman is to be reared. 




CHAPTER X. 

CICERO AS PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR. TIRO. OELIUS. 
ROME ON THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 




51 B.C. 



5I-SO B.C. 

ICERO accepted the governor- 
ship of a province unwillingly, 
and was most 
desirous that his 
command should not be pro- 
longed beyond a single year. 
He felt that this was not the 
work for which he was best 
fitted. " They have clapped 
a saddle on the ox," * he says. 
The political situation at home was fearfully critical, 
and it distressed him to be away from the centre of 
events at such a time. Cilicia and its concerns 
seemed petty, as lying outside of the main current 
of grave interests and anxious counsels at Rome. 
" I cannot tell you," he writes to Atticus,f " how I 
burn with desire for the city, and how hard I find it 
to put up with all this paltry insipid business." 

* AdAtt., v., 15, 3. 
\ Ad Alt., v., 11, 1. 

2Q5 



296 Governorship of Cilicia. [51 b,c 3 

Cicero feels, however, that his character is at stake ; 
" the principles which I have professed for so many 
years will now be put to the test of practice."* He 
is most anxious about the behaviour of his lieutenants, 
the insolence of whose manners to the provincials 
disgusts him.f He is able, however, to give them a 
good character, so far as actions are concerned. 
" Thus far," he writes on his journey,;): " I have no 
reason to find fault with any of my suite. They 
seem to recognise what ground I have taken and on 
what terms I allow them to come with me. They 
really regulate their conduct, as my reputation de- 
mands. For the future, if it be true that Mike 
master, like man,' they will certainly persevere ; for 
I mean them to see no act of mine which can give 
them an excuse for misbehaving. If that proves in- 
sufficient, I must try stronger measures." 

One of the worst features of the rule of Republi- 
can Rome in her provinces was the want of continuity. 
The power of the governor was so arbitrary that all 
depended on the accident of his personal character. 
Cicero entered on a province " simply 
wrecked and ruined for good and all"§ 
by his predecessor. The wounds which Appius 
Claudius had inflicted " stared him in the face and 
could not be concealed."! Cicero at once set about 
reversing many of his iniquitous measures, but was 



* AdAtl.t v., 13, I. 
f Ad Att., v., 10, 3. 
\AdAtt, v., II, 5. 
§AdAtt. t v., 16, 2. 
I Ad AtU % v., 15, 3, 



51 B.C.] Governorship of Cilicia. 297 

careful to screen his reputation as much as possible.* 
This did not save him from many bitter reproaches 
from his predecessor, which he answered with good- 
tempered but spirited vindications of his action. It 
was like a change of doctors, he remarks to Atticus f ; 
Appius had adopted a lowering treatment, and was 
vexed to see Cicero feeding the patient up again. 

A Roman province was a unity, merely as the 
Persian Empire was a unity, in the sense that it all 
had one master. If we look at its internal organisa- 
tion, a province is rather an aggregate of isolated 
commonwealths. Every acre of ground is part of 
the territory of some State, and each State has its 
own laws, its own courts of justice, its own treasury, 
and its own power of self-taxation. Super-imposed 
on these, but not substituted for them, comes the 
Roman administration of public order and defence, 
of justice, and of imperial finance., 

The first thing which Cicero did for his subjects 
was to allow them to settle all their own controver- 
sies in their own courts. In Sicily, as we learn from 
the speech against Verres, this was a right guaranteed 
by the constitution of the province ; but in Cilicia the 
extent of interference by the Roman authority ap- 
pears to have been at the discretion of the governor. 
Cicero seemed to be giving away a profitable privi- 
lege and the Greeks hailed his indulgence " as if he 
had restored them independence.":}: In cases where 
Roman citizens were concerned, the native courts 

* Ad Alt, v., 17, 6. 
f Ad Att, % vi., I, 2. 
% AdAtt., vi„ 3, 4* 



298 Governorship of Cilicia. [51 b.c. 

had no jurisdiction, and these still came before the 
governor or his deputy. Cicero in his edict,* while 
adopting the ordinances which his old instructor 
Scaevola had instituted in his governorship of Asia, 
forty-three years before, for the regulation of inherit 
ance and debt, and for suits between the tax-farmers 
and the subjects, announced that in other matters he 
should follow the rules laid down in the edict of the 
praetor at Rome. This observance helps us to see 
how Roman law and Roman methods of procedure 
were gradually extended among the subject peoples. 
We are not informed what was the nature of the 
imperial taxes in Cilicia. It appears, however, that 
the tax-farmers had to deal, not with individuals, but 
with the communities ; for these communities were 
deeply in debt to them, and had to stave off the 
evil day by entering into special agreements, by 
which exorbitant interest was often charged on the 
arrears. Cicero found that from the first foundation 
of the province such agreements had been held to be 
exempt from the general rule, which limited the rate 
of interest to 12 per cent. He hit upon a happy 
compromise f ; naming a tolerably easy term for 
payment, he ordained that for all debts discharged 
before that day he would allow only the legal rate 
of interest ; if the term were exceeded, then the 
letter of the bond was to be exacted. But this 
method would be fruitless, unless some means were 
found of replenishing the exhausted treasuries of the 
subject States. Cicero adopted a twofold means 

* Ad Atl. y vi., I, 15. 
\AdAtU, vi,, 1, 16. 



51 b.c.j Administration. 299 

of relief. In the first place he stopped absolutely 
the drain on the yearly income which had been oc- 
casioned by the illegal exactions of his predecessors. 
The burden of these may be guessed from the fact* 
that the island of Cyprus alone had been compelled 
to pay Appius two hundred Attic talents (^50,000) 
under the threat that otherwise he would billet his 
troops upon them. Secondly f Cicero looked into 
the local budgets of the States, and found that the 
Greek magistrates had been in the habit of system- 
atically robbing the exchequers. The proconsul 
does not seem to have felt much scruple in com- 
pounding the felony. He made the defaulters dis- 
gorge all that they had embezzled for the last ten 
years, under promise that no further proceedings 
should be taken against them. By these means 
enough was realised to pay off all the arrears due to 
the tax-farmers, who were beginning to be seriously 
alarmed about their money. " For this," he says, 
"I have become as dear to them as the apple of their 
eye." With Cicero's views as to the " harmony of 
the orders," it was very necessary that he should be 
on good terms with the tax-farmers. They sub- 
mitted, we find, with a good grace to the cutting off 
of their usurious interest, and Cicero repaid them, 
" full measure and running over with complimentary 
speeches and invitations to dinner." He sums up 
his relations with them in answer to Atticus* inquiries 
— " I pet them, and show them attentions, I make 
much of them in the way of praise and compliments ; 

* Ad Ait., v., 21, 7. 
f AdAtt., vi., 2, 5. 



300 Governorship of Cilicia. [50 B.C. 

I take good care that they do not oppress any 
one."* 

The revenue of the local exchequers came partly 
from lands which were the property of the subject 
republics. We find an impudent request from Cae- 
lius (to which of course Cicero did not listen for a 
moment) on behalf of a friend who farmed some such 
land, and who wished not to be obliged to pay his 
rent.f This source of revenue, however, seems barely 
to have sufficed for the ordinary local expenses. The 
sums which the communities had to pay in bribes to 
the Roman governor were raised by a direct tax on 
land and income, called "tributum." Sometimes 
they were obliged to anticipate their revenue, by 
selling the right to collect these rates for a lump sum 
to a tax-farmer, and then they were driven to impose 
on themselves a fresh contribution, which Cicero 
characterises to Appius \ as " that most oppressive 
burden, which you know full well, of the poll-tax 
and the door-tax." All such taxes were levied by 
the authority of the local senates and magistrates, 
though of course the Roman governor could practi- 
cally compel their imposition. § 

To avoid these extremities, Cicero was anxious 
that his subjects should not involve themselves in 
unnecessary expenses, and on this ground he ordered 
that they should not without his permission vote 
sums for complimentary embassies to Rome in laud- 

* Ad AtL, vi., I, 16. 
f Ad Fam., viii., 9, 4. 
% Ad Fam. y iii., 8, 5. 
§ In Verrem % iii., 42, TOO. 



50 B.C.] Administration. 301 

ation of his predecessor. He would " praise any/ 
he said,* " who undertook such a mission at his own 
cost ; he would allow the expenses if modest, but 
would disallow them if excessive. ,, Appius wrote 
very angrily about this, and Cicero permitted the 
embassies in some cases where a majority of the local 
senate was in favour of the vote.f He appears like- 
wise to have withdrawn an objection which he had 
raised on grounds of economy to the erection of 
some sort of public building in honour of Appius4 
Cicero felt himself bound to prove the sincerity of 
his reconciliation with the brother of Publius Clodius 
by doing all that he reasonably could for him ; and 
he was further stimulated by the knowledge that, 
before the trial of Appius for his misdoing was over, 
he would very likely hear that Dolabella, Appius* 
accuser at Rome, had become his own son-in-law. 
Cicero had left the choice of Tullia's new husband to 
herself and her mother, and Dolabella was in fact 
the man whom they chose. Cicero, notwithstanding 
his full knowledge of the enormities of his predeces- 
sor, publicly complimented and favoured him, " not 
so as to offend against my own good name, but still 
with all good-will towards him." § Apart from per- 
sonal reasons this conduct was necessary in the inter- 
ests of his subjects. Pompey was expected to take 
command against the Parthians, and Pompey *s son 
was lately married to Appius Claudius' daughter. 

* Ad Fam.y iii., 8, 3. 
f Ad Fain., iii., 10, 6. 
% Ad Fam, % iii., 7, 2. 
$AdAtt., vi., 2, IO. 



302 Governorship of Cilicia. [50 B.C. 

Cicero would have done the Cilicians an ill turn by 
embroiling them with Appius, and of this they were 
fully conscious. They were anxious to stand well 
with their late oppressor, and eager to render him 
thanks for having harried them. Thus the corrupt 
judge was tenderly treated while his decrees were 
reversed, a process which we find going on as late as 
March in the year 50 B.C. " If Appius, as Brutus' 
letters indicate, is grateful to me, I am glad to hear 
it. For all that, this very day, which is dawning as 
I write, will be largely spent in cancelling unjust 
arrangements and decisions of his." * Such were 
the necessities of Roman politics. 

It would have been well if the demands on a pro- 
consul had been limited to the salving over of past 
iniquities. It required no little firmness to resist the 
appeals of friends at home to perpetrate all manner 
of fresh injustice on their behalf. " When any one 
applies to you," Cicero writes f to Atticus, " unless 
you feel quite sure that it is something which I can 
grant, pray give an absolute denial." One specimen 
of such applications will be sufficient. A certain 
Scaptius, armed with strong letters of introduction 
from Marcus Brutus, applied to Cicero for an ap- 
pointment as prefect in Cyprus, where he was owed 
money by the State of Salamis. Cicero refused ab- 
solutely on two grounds : in the first place he would 
never give such an office to any one who was trading 
in his province ; secondly, Scaptius had already 
shown how he understood the functions of prefect. 

* AdAtt.,vi., 1,2. 
t Ad Alt., v., 21, 5. 



50 B.C.] Administration. 303 

He had been entrusted by Appius with a troop of 
horse which he had employed to blockade the Sen- 
ate of Salamis in their council-chamber, until five of 
them had actually died of starvation. It had been 
one of Cicero's first acts peremptorily to order the 
horsemen out of the island. Scaptius was in reality 
the agent of Brutus, who held a Salaminian bond 
bearing interest at forty-eight per cent. This loan, 
having been contracted at Rome, was contrary to a 
Gabinian law of the year 67 B.C., and was only legal- 
ised by special decree of the Roman Senate. Cicero, 
when the case came before him, decided that this 
legalisation must be interpreted as subject to his own 
general edict, which limited interest to twelve per 
cent. The Salaminians tendered principal and in- 
terest at this rate ; they said they were paying it out 
of Cicero's pocket, for the amount was less than 
what they were accustomed to pay in presents to the 
governor. Scaptius refused to accept the money ; 
and it is the one great blot on Cicero's administra- 
tion, that he put pressure on the Salaminians not to 
insist on their right to deposit the money in a tem- 
ple, in which case interest would have ceased to run. 
Cicero gave judgment that the Salaminians had 
made a legal tender * ; but he knew that as the busi- 
ness was not fully wound up, it would be possible 
for his successor to set that judgment aside. It is 
painful to have to record that Brutus complained 
bitterly when the horsemen of his agent were ordered 
to leave Cyprus, and that Atticus urged his friend to 

* Ad Att. t vi., 1, 7. " Igitur meo decreto soluta res Scaptio 
stat." 



304 Governorship of Cilicia. [§o B.C. 

support Scaptius. We can only hope that, when 
they wrote, neither of them had full knowledge of 
what Scaptius had done. Cicero writes pages of ex- 
planation and excuse, excuse not for his weak com- 
pliance about the deposit of the money, but for his 
having defended the cause of the subjects against 
the interests of the influential Roman. Well may 
he say, * " If I did anything of the sort, how should 
I ever dare to look again on the pages of that book 
of mine f which you commend ? Nay, my dear At- 
ticus, you have shown yourself in this matter too 
much, far too much, a friend to Brutus, and too 
little, I fear, a friend to me." 

Whether or not Cicero satisfied the public opinion 
of Roman society, as to the services which it ex- 
pected from a proconsul, he earned at least the 
hearty gratitude of his subjects. He refused, how- 
ever, all forms of compliment which would have in- 
volved the smallest expenditure. " I am no burden 
to any of the provincials," he writes to Atticus, % 
" though perhaps I am to you when I tell you such 
long tales about my doings. Bear with me, I pray 
you, for it is your counsels that I have been fol- 
lowing." 

Without any unworthy proceedings, Cicero was 
able to save a considerable sum out of his legal al- 
lowances. The principal source of revenue was the 
corn which the governor might requisition for his 



* Ad Alt. y vi., 2, 9. 

f /. e. , his picture of the ideal statesman in the De Republica \ 
see above, p. 294. 
%Ad Alt. % v., 21, 7. 



50 B.C.] Administration. 305 

table at a price fixed by the Senate, and payable by 
the Roman Treasury. The amount of corn allowed 
was far greater than that actually needed for the pro- 
consul's consumption, and when, as this year in 
Cilicia, famine prices were ruling, the burden of sup- 
plying the corn was willingly commuted for a sum 
of money. We learn from the speech against Ver- 
res * that gains from this source might be accepted 
by honourable men, and that a great difference on 
either side between the price fixed by the Senate 
and that actually ruling in the market was a piece 
of luck of which almost every governor took advan- 
tage. In Cicero's case we find that by the end of 
the year ^22,000 stood to his credit on deposit at 
Ephesus f ; most of the money was, however, lent 
by him to Pompey, and swept away into the bottom- 
less gulf of expenditure for the Civil War. 

The proconsul was not only supreme judge and 
administrator in his province, but likewise com- 
mander-in-chief of its army of occupa- 
tion. Cicero found himself with a force 
miserably insufficient both in quantity and quality 
and with the danger of a Parthian invasion on his 
hands. With the aid of the native kings of Cappa- 
docia and Galatia he made a tolerable demonstration 
on the eastern frontier of his province. Meantime 
the Parthians, who had over-run the neighbouring 
province of Syria, were defeated by Cassius the lieu- 
tenant of Bibulus, and retired across the Euphrates. 
All the world expected them back again the next 

* In Verrem^ Hi., 93, 217. 
\ Ad Fam. t v., 20, 9. 



306 Military Operations. [51 B.C. 

spring, but dissensions at home kept them quiet in 
the year 50 B.C., and Cicero was able to leave his 
province to his quaestor in August without anxiety 
on this account. 

After the departure of the Parthians in the autumn 
of 51 B.C. Cicero employed his troops in putting 
down some of the wild hill-tribes who infested the 
frontier region of Mount Amanus. In his private 
letters Cicero does not take his military exploits 
very seriously. " I am thinking/' he writes to 
Paetus,* " of having a bit of a fleet on my coasts ; 
they say that is the very best mode of resisting Par- 
thian cavalry." To Atticus he notes how at Issus 
he has occupied the site of Alexander's camp — " a 
general of a different kidney from you and me " f ; 
and his crowning success is described in words % 
which show that he estimated it at its true rate. 
" On the morning of the Saturnalia § the Pindenis- 
sitae surrendered to me, fifty-seven days after our 
first attack. ' Who, the mischief/ you say ' are these 
Pindenissitae of yours? Who are they? I never 
heard the name before. ' Well, is that my fault ? 
Can I make Cilicia into an ^Etolia or Macedonia ? M 
Cicero's campaign was in truth a mere border expedi- 



* Ad Fam., ix., 25, I. 

\Ad Att., v., 20, 3. 

\ Ad Att., v., 20, I. 

§ December 17th. Owing to the neglect of the pontiffs to give 
notice of intercalary months, the Roman Calendar was much out 
of reckoning at this time. The 17th of December in 51 B.C. would, 
according to the season of the year, be the 10th of November. We 
find that winter came on after Cicero's departure, but his brother 
whom he left in command in this district was snowed up. 



51 B.C.] Cicero and Cato. 307 

tion ; but it was well managed and successful. 
Quintus was acting as his brother's lieutenant, and 
he was, as we have seen, a skilful and experienced 
officer. 

Cicero's troops gave him the greeting with which 
a victorious army used to salute its general. A 
Roman commander-in-chief was always addressed 
by his own soldiers as " Imperator," * but custom 
forbade him to use the title himself or to accept it 
from civilians, unless it had been first stamped on 
him by such a public and universal acclamation from 
the troops. From the moment of this greeting, 
Cicero was justified in wreathing the fasces of his 
lictors with laurel, and in signing " Imperator " after 
his name in all formal letters. The next step in the 
recognition of his success would be for the Senate 
to decree a Thanksgiving on account of it, and this 
again would naturally lead up to a triumph. The 
Thanksgiving was voted in spite of the opposition 
of Cato, who, however, proposed an alternative 
motion, giving thanks not to the gods but to Cicero 
for the wisdom and purity of his administration as 
governor. He likewise wrote to Cicero an elaborate 
explanation and apology for the line he had taken.f 
Caesar wrote with warm congratulations, and exulted 
over Cato's untimely scrupulosity, which he hoped 
would cause ill-will between him and Cicero. Cicero 
seems at first to have been quite satisfied with Cato. 
" His amendment/' he writes to Atticus,^: " was more 

* See Smith's Diet. Ant. (2d edition) ad voc. 
\ Ad Fam., xv., 5. 
\ Ad Att. , vii., 1, 7. 



308 Tiro. [50 B.C. 

honourable to me than if he had voted me all the 
triumphs in the world. . . . Then he was one 
of the witnesses who registered the decree, and he 
has written me a most gratifying letter about his 
own amendment." Later on, when Cato had sup- 
ported the claims of Bibulus to a Thanksgiving^ 
because his lieutenant had driven the Parthians from 
his province, Cicero's tone changed. " Cato," he 
says,* " was disgustingly ill-natured to me ; he bore 
testimony to my purity, justice, kindliness, and good 
faith, which I did not require, and refused that 
which I asked for." 

On his journey homeward from his province Cicero 
was obliged to leave behind him at Patrae his freed- 
man Tiro, who was attacked by a dangerous illness. 
Cicero was always a kind and generous master to his 
dependents, and for Tiro in particular he had a sin- 
cere and tender affection. " I beseech you, my dear 
Tiro," he writes on this occasion, f " spare no ex- 
pense in all that relates to your health. I have 
written to Curius to let you have any sum you may 
mention. I think it will be well to make a present 
to the physician to render him the more attentive. 
The obligations which you have conferred on me 
are countless, in my home and in the Forum, at 
Rome and in my province ; they extend alike to 
my public and my private concerns, to my studies 
and to my writings. But I shall esteem it the great- 
est of all if you let me see you again, as I trust I 
shall, in good health. I think that your best plan, 

* Ad AtL y vii., 2, 7. 
f Ad Fam., xvi., 4, 2. 



50 B.C.] Roman Freedmen. 309 

:f you are sufficiently recovered, will be to come 
home with Mescinius the quaestor. He is a kindly 
man, and seemed to have a liking for you. But 
then, my dear Tiro, I wish you to be careful not 
only about your health but about the dangers of 
the passage. I would not have you hurry on any 
account. My sole anxiety is to have you safe and 
sound." 

The society of the ancient world was founded on 
slavery, and in attempting to reconstruct the picture 
we cannot afford to neglect the background. At 
this epoch we already find traces of that secret power 
exercised by the slaves and freedmen of the leading 
statesmen, which grew to so scandalous a height 
under the Empire. We have seen in the first chap- 
ter the odious domination of Sulla's freedman, Chry- 
sogonus. The first Caesar was too strong a man to 
allow himself to be governed by his servants, but of 
the dependents of Pompey we hear only too much. 
Plutarch tells us * an entertaining story of Cato's 
experiences in Syria during the Mithridatic War. 
On approaching the city of Antioch Cato found that 
the population had turned out in festal attire with 
white robes and crowns and music. He naturally 
supposed that this greeting was intended for the 
Roman officer, and he scolded those of his escort 
who had been sent before to make preparations, be- 
cause they had not stopped the display. But at this 
moment a venerable man, bearing a wand and ap- 
pearing to be the marshal of the procession, advanced, 
and, without so much as saluting Cato, inquired 

* Plutarch, Cato Minor \ 13. 



310 Roman Freedmen. 

whether he had seen Demetrius on the road, and at 
what hour he might be expected. The procession 
had indeed been organised to do honour to Pompey's 
freedman. 

Quintus Cicero had a confidential servant named 
Statius, and Pomponia, Quintus* wife, who was some- 
thing of a domestic tyrant, was very jealous of this 
Statius. Cicero gives an amusing picture of the 
family to Pomponia's brother Atticus.* " When we 
arrived, Quintus said in the kindest way in the 
world, ' Pomponia, do you invite the women, and I 
will see after the lads ' ; nothing could be more 
pleasant, to my judgment, and that not only in the 
words but in the tone and manner. But she, in my 
presence, replied : ' I am a stranger in this house ' ; 
and all because Statius had been sent beforehand to 
get ready some breakfast for us. i See/ says Quin- 
tus to me, ' what I have to submit to every day/ " 
Quintus Cicero was a man of choleric and blustering 
temper in the outside world, but he was meek as a 
lamb at home. The poor husband rebelled at last 
and divorced Pomponia, but even here he could not 
act on his own account, but must needs make Sta- 
tius the confidant of his plans. A letter of his freed- 
man on this matter fell into the hands of his son and 
caused some unpleasantness. Quintus would never 
marry again ; he had learnt, he declared, to appreci- 
ate the blessing of going to sleep without a curtain 
lecture, f When Quintus Cicero was governor of 
Asia, Statius appears to have acted as his vicegerent. 

* Ad Att. t v., I, 3. 
f Ad AtU % xiv., 13, 5. 



Statins and Tiro. 3 1 1 

Official rescripts and injunctions were brought to 
him ready written out ; Statius looked through them, 
and if he said it was all right his master affixed his 
seal. It was about this time that Statius was manu- 
mitted, against the advice of Marcus Cicero, who was 
much vexed at his brother's neglect of his counsels. 
He writes to Quintus afterwards * : "I confess that 
it displeased me to hear that he has more influence 
with you than is consonant with the gravity of your 
time of life, or with the prudence which your high 
station demands. You cannot think how many 
persons came to beg it as a favour from me, that I 
would say a good word for them with Statius ; or 
how often in the freedom of conversation Statius 
himself came out with 1 1 did not approve of this/ 
' I warned him/ ' I persuaded him/ ' I deterred him/ 
Now however great his faithfulness in these matters 
(which I quite accept on your judgment), yet for the 
world to see a slave or freedman in such favour is far 
from dignified/' Quintus revenged himself very 
neatly for his brother's sermonising. When the time 
comes for Tiro to be manumitted, Quintus writes f 
expressing great pleasure that Tiro, "who is so 
much superior to the station in which he was born, 
will by your act be raised from being a slave to be 
our friend, " and he adds that he knows what a treas- 
ure is a faithful freedman from his own experience 
of Statius. 

Tiro was beloved by the whole family. Quintus 
writes to him in the most cordial tone ; he scolds 

*AdQ.F. i i. 1 2, 3. 
f Ad Fam. % xvi., 16. 



312 Tiro. 

him, if he is remiss in correspondence, and tells him 
that he will have to employ his old master to plead 
his cause, and that it will require all Cicero's elo- 
quence to get him acquitted.* Young Marcus, 
Cicero's son, is likewise very affectionate in his ex- 
pressions. There is a pleasant letter f from the 
lad in which he banters Tiro about his purchase of a 
farm : " You will have to give up all your fine city 
ways. You have become a country Roman. I see 
you as large as life, and very charming you look, 
buying implements, consulting with the bailiff, and 
keeping the seeds you have saved from dessert in 
your great-coat pocket. " 

To Cicero himself Tiro was, as he says, invaluable. 
He was his secretary who, by means of a sort of 
shorthand which he invented, could keep pace while 
his master dictated, % or, if need were, decipher his 
handwriting when the ordinary copyists were at 
fault, § his critic who could correct slips of the pen 
or of memory, || the constant aid in all his literary 
work. " I am most anxious to have you with me," T 
writes Cicero on the occasion of another sickness, 
"but I am afraid of the journey for you. . . . 
Remember that a relapse owing to any imprudence 
after so severe an attack may have serious conse- 
quences. . . . My studies, or I should say our 
studies, have been quite languishing for want of you, 

* Ad Fam., xvi., 26, I. 
f Ad Fam. y xvi., 21, 7. 
% Ad Alt. , xiii., 25, 3. 
§ Ad Fan?., xvi., 22 y I. 
|| Ad Fam^ xvi., 17. 
T Ad Fam. t xvi., 10. 



Cicero s Letters. 313 

but the letter which Acastus has just brought has 
made them look up a little. Rufus is here very brisk 
and cheerful. He wanted to hear something of my 
composition, but I told him that my books were 
dumb in your absence." It is pleasant to read of 
the master's concern when his postman arrives with 
only a message from Tiro who is too weak to put 
pen to paper, and to learn from a postscript that a 
second carrier has come while Cicero is writing, and 
that the invalid has summoned up strength to scrawl 
a few lines nevertheless, " with the letters all totter- 
ing " * ; and that Cicero is sending a nurse and a 
cook to aid in his convalescence. 

Tiro had, during his master's lifetime, formed a 
plan of making a collection of his letters. Cicero 
jokes with him about it, and says that he believes 
Tiro wants to have his own included in the collec- 
tion, f He seems, however, seriously to have ap- 
proved the notion, for in the year before his death 
he writes to Atticus % : " There is no collection of 
my letters, but Tiro has about seventy, besides a few 
still to come from you. Before they are published, 
I must read them through and correct them." We 
may be thankful indeed that this plan was never 
carried out. Tiro, notwithstanding his feeble health, 
lived to a good old age, and devoted the rest of his 
life to the pious task of collecting and publishing 
the works of his beloved master and friend. In- 
stead of the seventy and odd letters, carefully edited 

* Ad Fam.y xvi., 15, 2. 
f Ad Fam., xvi., 17. 
J Ad Atl., xvi., 5, 5. 



3 J 4 Prelude to Civil War. 150B.C. 

and altered, which Cicero would have allowed to pos- 
terity, Tiro has preserved over eight hundred and 
fifty, and these he has treated as a sacred trust, and 
has kept them absolutely untampered with, so that 
we read them to-day just as they came from his 
master's pen. 

Cicero landed at Brundisium on the twenty-third 
of November, 50 B.C., having been absent from Italy 
not quite a year and a half. The inter- 
val had been occupied with a long 
series of intrigues and proposals for compromise 
regarding Caesar's claim to retain his province and 
army, until he should enter on his second consulship 
at the beginning of the year 48 B.C. Caesar's oppo- 
nents wished that there should be an interval be- 
tween his proconsulship and his consulship, and it is 
pretty certain that they meant to use the interval, 
during which he would be unshielded by office, to 
bring him to trial for his illegal acts, when consul ten 
years before.* Of this controversy it will be sufficient 
to say that Caesar appears to have had no legal ground 
for resisting supersession at any time after March 1,49 
B.C., when his ten years' governorship would expire ; 
but that a successor could not have been sent out to 
take his place until the end of that year, had not the 
rules for the appointment of provincial governors 
been purposely altered by Pompey during his sole 
consulship in 52 B.C. (see above, p. 289). Thus Caesar 
was practically cheated of an expectation, which 
under the old rules of succession he had a full right 



* Suetonius, Jul., 30. 



50 B.C.] Ccesar and the Senate. 315 

to entertain. * The true cause of quarrel of course 
lay deeper. Caesar had acquired so strong a position 
that, if he were again consul, he would be practically 
master of the State, and he had given such abundant 
evidence of his unscrupulousness that the con- 
stitutionalists had good grounds for supposing 
that he would use his power to destroy the Re- 
public. With the help of Pompey, they now 
thought themselves strong enough to prevent this , 
Caesar with a juster appreciation believed that the 
chances of war were in his favour. Thus both 
sides were strongly inclined to fight, and the 
proposals for compromise were not so much serious 
attempts at a tolerable settlement, as contrivances 
of each party to put the other in the wrong and 
to toss to and fro the responsibility for breaking 
the peace. 

When Cicero left Italy for his province in June, 
51, he seems to have recognised that the Republic 
ran some danger from Caesar, but not that there was 
the prospect of actual armed attack. He pictures 
Caesar as consul in Rome and attempting all sorts of 
revolutionary measures, but believes that the pres- 
ence of Pompey will be sufficient to hold him in 
check. Thus he strongly objects to a notion which 
Pompey was entertaining at the time, that he should 
retire to his Spanish province, f On his outward 
journey (May, 5 1 B.C.) Cicero visited Pompey, and 
at his request passed some days at his Tarentine 

* The whole question is admirably discussed by Mommsen in a 
monograph, entitled Rechts-frage zwischen Ccesar und den SenaU 
\AdAtU, v., II, 3. 



316 Eve of the Civil War. [50 B.C. 

villa. " I consented willingly/' he writes to Atticus,* 
" for I shall hear much excellent discourse on affairs 
of State, and likewise get valuable hints 
for my provincial business." A few 
days later he writes,f " I am just leaving that ad- 
mirable man, who is fully prepared for resistance to 
all that we have to fear." In contrast to this grave 
and sententious approval, it is worth while to note 
the observations of the irreverent Caelius;}: : " If you 
have come across Pompey, as you hoped you would, 
pray write me what impression he made on you, 
what he said to you, and what sort of intentions he 
manifested ; for his habit is to say one thing and 
mean another, and yet not to have wit enough to 
conceal what his real purpose is." 

Cicero, during the whole of his year in Cilicia, seems 
to have remained under the same illusion as to the 
nature of the danger that was to be apprehended 
and his Roman correspondents did little to enlighten 
him. Atticus with strange self-deception writes to 
him § about the end of the year 51, that all his hopes 
of peace and quiet are placed on Pompey, and Cicero 
in answer expresses his full agreement. Even as late 
as June, 50, on the news of the desertion of the cause 
by Curio and the consul Paullus, who were both 
bought by Caesar, Cicero writes to Atticus, || " not 
that I fear any danger, while Pompey stands firm, 



* Ad Att. % v., 6, I. 

\AdAtt.,y.^. 

\ Ad Fam. t viii., i t 3. 

%Ad Att., vi., 1, 11. 

\Ad Att. % vi., 3, 4. 



50 B.C.] Eve of the Civil War. 3 1 7 

or even while he sits quiet, if only his health be 
spared/' The first clear statement that Civil War 
is impending comes in the month of September from 
Cicero's keen-witted correspondent Caelius. " Un- 
less/' he writes,* " one or other of them is shipped off 
to the Parthian war, I see that a mighty conflict is 
at hand, which must be decided by cold steel. Both 
the champions are full of determination and amply 
equipped. If we were not the stake which is being 
played for, this would be a grand and delicious spec- 
tacle that Fortune is preparing for us." 

Men were slowly ranging themselves on the one 
side or the other, under the influence of motives 
as various as their characters. " Pompey," writes 
Caelius, f " will have the Senate and the jurors, Caesar 
all who are in peril or whose outlook is bad." Sue- 
tonius % tells us that Caesar had spared no money 
and no pains to provide himself with partisans 
against the day of conflict. " All those who were in 
his suite, and a large portion of the Senate besides, 
were bound to him by loans without interest, or at 
very light charges. Men of other ranks who visited 
him, either with or without invitation, at his head- 
quarters, were gratified by handsome donations, 
which were extended even to the freedmen and 
slaves of each, according as they had influence with 
their patron or master. Further he was the sole re- 
sort of debtors and persons threatened with prosecu- 
tion and of spendthrift youths ; only to those who 

* Ad Fam. t viii., 14, 4. 
f Ad Fam. y viii., 14, 3. 
f Suet., 7*/., 27. 



318 Marcus C alius Ruf us. [50 B.C. 

lay under accusations too serious or a weight of em- 
harassment and profligacy too great for him to be 
able to assist them, he would say outright, i The 
only thing for you is a Civil War.' " Some, such as 
Curio and Paullus, who were able to give really valu- 
able assistance, sold their services for enormous sums 
of money. Caelius too, it is hinted, * was found to 
be in possession of unlikely resources at this moment 
of crisis. He was not the man to serve any cause 
for nothing, if he could see his way to be paid for 
following it ; but even apart from money, the creed 
which he professes with signal effrontery to Cicero 
would naturally carry Caelius into Caesar's camp. 
" One consideration," he says, f "will not, I think, 
escape you ; namely, that in civil strife, so long as 
the contest is waged with the weapons of peace, we 
ought to follow the more honourable cause, but when 
it comes to camps and armies, then the stronger, and 
one should esteem that the better side which is the 
safer." As he adds immediately afterwards that 
Caesar's army is incomparably the better of the two, 
there can be little doubt to which side he is inclined 
to give or sell his services. 

The name of Marcus Caelius Rufus calls up the 
image of strange and striking personalities, and of 
all the pleasures and the passions in which Roman 
society revelled on the brink of the Civil War. It 
reminds us of his stormy loves with Clodia, the 
" Juno of the great eyes," the glorious " Lesbia " 
who broke the heart of Catullus, while she inspired 

* Ad Att. y vii., 3, 6. 
\ Ad Fam. viii., 14, 3. 



50 B.C.] Marcus Ccelius Rufus. 3x9 

him with the passion which has made his verse im- 
mortal, and of the bitter and tearful reproaches 
which Catullus addresses to the friend who has sup- 
planted him ; then of Caelius' deadly quarrel with 
this terrible mistress, of the charge of poisoning 
which Lesbia brought against him, and of Cicero's 
tremendous onslaught on her, while he defended 
Caelius at the bar, and took revenge at the same 
time for her share in the wrong, which her brother, 
Publius Clodius, had inflicted on Cicero himself. 
" It would seem," writes Mr. Tyrrell, " that Caelius 
ultimately escaped both from her love and her 
hatred after a long struggle ; but we question if he 
ever forgot her." We might dwell on Caelius' daring 
but unchastened eloquence, his keenness of political 
insight, his able administration as aedile, his charm- 
ing letters to Cicero, his recklessness, his unscrupu- 
lous cynicism, and finally on his insane attempts at 
revolution and his miserable end during the Civil 
War ; all these make up together one of the most 
interesting episodes of the last age of the Roman 
Republic. But another biography, or better still a 
historical romance,* would be needed to do justice 
to Caelius, Clodia, and Catullus. We have here to 
do with the stern realities of politics and of war, 
which underlay the genius and the wantonness of 
that brilliant society. 

The situation of Cicero on his return to Italy in 



* This suggestion is borrowed from Messrs. Tyrrell & Purser who 
have included a charming paper on Caelius in the third volume of 
their edition of the Letters. There is also a very interesting account 
of him in Boissier, Ciceron et ses Amis. 



320 Eve of the Civil War. [50B.C. 

50 B.C. was necessarily one of peculiar anxiety. He 
had embraced the friendship of Caesar in order to 
please Pompey, and he never seems to have contem- 
plated the possibility of having to choose between 
the two. He lays his difficulty with all frankness 
before his friend in a letter written from Athens in 
October.* " I adjure you, bring to bear all the 
affection you have for me, and all the sagacity in 
which I know not your equal, bring them all, I say, 
to the task of considering my whole position. For I 
seem to see such a conflict impending — unless the 
same Providence which extricated us better than 
we dared to hope from the Parthian war should 
again take pity on the State — such a conflict, I say, 
as the world has never witnessed before. Well, that 
is a peril I share with the rest, and I do not bid you 
think of that. It is my own personal problem which 
I beg you to solve. You see that by your advice I 
have linked myself to each of them. ... I have 
succeeded, and that by constant observances, in 
making myself a prime friend of both. For my 
calculation was that, while allied with Pompey, I 
should never be forced to act against the right, and 
that in supporting Caesar I should never find myself 
in collision with Pompey ; so firmly were the two 
bound together. And now, as you prove to me and 
as I see, a death-struggle between the two is at 
hand. . . . What am I to do ? I do not mean 
in the last extremity ; for if it comes to war, I see 
well enough that it is better to be conquered along 



*AdAtt. t vii., t f 2. 



50 B.C.] Eve of the Civil War. 321 

with Pompey, than to conquer with Caesar ; but 
what of the questions which I shall find open on my 
arrival ? Whether Csesar is to be allowed to stand 
for the consulship in his absence ? And whether he 
must dismiss his army ? " 

On all the questions at issue Cicero feels that gross 
blunders have been made. It is too late now to think 
of defending the commonwealth against Caesar in his 
strength. " That cause," he writes, " has nothing 
wanting to it except a cause. ,, Since it has come to 
this, he feels that " there is no ship for him, except 
that one which has Pompey at the helm," * but that 
he will privately use his influence with Pompey for 
peace. This resolution is recorded on the 6th of 
December, In a letter to Tiro f six weeks later Cicero 
sums up his proceedings. " For my own part, since 
I drew near to the city, I have been incessantly plan- 
ning and speaking and acting for peace ; but a 
strange madness has possessed not only bad men, 
but even those who are esteemed good, so that all 
desire to fight, while I cry out in vain that nothing 
is more wretched than a civil war." 

Thus by a strange irony of fate that union of 
Pompey and the Optimates, which had been the 
dream of Cicero's politics, realised itself now, when 
it was too late, and under circumstances which moved 
him to despair. 

After stormy discussions during the first days of 
the new year, the Senate on the 7th of January met 



*AdAtt. t vil t 3, 5. 
f Ad Fam. t xvi., 12, 2. 



322 



Eve of the Civil War. 



[49 B.C. 



49 B.C. 



the persistent veto of Caesar's tribunes by the 
proclamation of martial law. The tribunes fled 
away, as Metellus Nepos had done 
thirteen years before (see p. 170) to 
their master's camp. Caesar had now the pretext for 
which he had been waiting. He appealed to the 
legion which he had with him at Ravenna, and led 
his advanced guard at once across the river Rubicon, 
the frontier of his province. " The die was cast," 
and the Civil War had begun. 




CHAPTER XL 

THE CIVIL WAR. 
49-47 B.C. 

HE first moves in this terrible 
game were highly successful 
for Caesar. Though he had 
at the moment only a small 
force south of the Alps, it con- 
sisted of seasoned veterans, 
and he pushed it forward with- 
out intermission. " We still 
hold Cingulum," writes Cicero 
on the 1 8th of January,* 
" we have lost Ancona ; Labienus has deserted 
Caesar. Are we speaking of an officer of the Roman 
People, or of Hannibal? Insensate and 
unhappy man that he is ! he has never 
had sight of so much as the shadow of true honour." 
Ariminum, Pisaurum, and Arretium also opened their 
gates to Caesar. Pompey seems to have been taken 
by surprise. The city of Rome was manifestly un- 
tenable in any case, but it was deserted in such 

* AaAtt., viL, II, I. 

323 




B.C. 49. 



324 The Civil War. [49 B.C. 

hurry and confusion that even the money in the 
Treasury was forgotten and left to fall into Caesar's 
hands. 

Pompey soon recovered himself and took the only 
course open to a prudent general under the circum- 
stances. The young men of age to serve throughout 
Italy had already taken the oath of military alle- 
giance to him, and he now ordered a general levy, and 
directed that the recruits should concentrate at Ca- 
nusium and Luceria in Apulia, so that they could 
fall back on the port of Brundisium. He had full 
command of the sea, and had collected abundance of 
transports. His orders however were not obeyed. 
Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had charge of Picenum 
and Umbria, in spite of the most urgent commands * 
to march south with every man whom he could raise, 
chose to believe that he could make a stand against 
Caesar at Corfinium. He had promised f to start 
from thence on the 9th of February, and if he had 
done so all might have been well. Later on he 
changed his mind, and announced that he should 
remain. He seems to have thought that he would 
force Pompey's hand, and compel him to advance to 
his support. Pompey, of course, knew better than 
to expose his raw recruits to Caesar's veterans. Caesar 
cut off Domitius' army at Corfinium, and it surren- 
dered on the 2 1st of February. Caesar dismissed 
the officers, including Domitius and Lentulus Spin- 
ther, unharmed, and enlisted the soldiers under his 
own standard. 

* Ad Atl. t viii., 12, A, B and C. 
j; Ad Att., viiLt 11, A. 



49 B.C.] Ccesar and Domitius. 325 

In this signal act of clemency Caesar acted both 
nobly and wisely. He had indeed every reason to 
be thankful to Domitius, who had done his best to 
give him the opportunity of finishing the war at a 
stroke, and who actually succeeded in disconcerting 
all Pompey's plans. In any modern army Domitius 
would have been shot by sentence of court-martial ; 
but it is doubtful how far Pompey's power extended 
in matters of military discipline ; and even if he had 
the power, after Caesar had spared Domitius, Pompey 
could hardly help doing the same. In letting loose 
on him again so mutinous and incompetent a col- 
league, Caesar was at once embarrassing his adversary, 
and gaining great credit for moderation himself. He 
had good cause to remark five weeks later in a letter 
to Cicero * : " I am quite indifferent to the fact that 
those whom I released are said to have gone away 
to make war with me again. All my wish is, that I 
should act like myself, and they like what they are." 
Caesar little knew that Domitius Ahenobarbus was 
destined to play the part of Banquo to his Macbeth. 
The great-grandson in direct male line of this Do- 
mitius married Agrippina the great-granddaughter of 
Augustus, and became the father of Nero, the last 
Emperor of Caesar's House. 

It is possible that, if Domitius had obeyed orders, 
Pompey might have been able with the sea open be- 
hind him at Brundisium to make a stand within lines 
erected there, just as he did a year later at Dyr- 
rachium. As it was, there was nothing for him but 
to evacuate Italy. Caesar pressed close upon him 

* Ad Att. % ix s , 16, A. 



326 The Civil War. [49 b.c. 

and tried to block the harbour of Brundisium ; but 
Pompey effected his escape with great skill, and 
crossed the Adriatic with the remainder of his force 
on the 10th of March. Caesar was unable from 
want of ships to follow up the pursuit ; and he 
resolved to transfer the war at once to Spain, which 
was held with a strong army by Pompey's lieutenants, 
Afranius and Petreius. Pompey might have availed 
himself of his command of the sea to reach Spain 
before Caesar, and to face him again on this new 
battle-ground. Caesar seems to have thought that 
this would have been his adversary's best move ; 
" as it is," he said,* " I shall go to Spain to fight an 
army without a general, and shall return to fight a 
general without an army." Pompey had however 
no reason to expect that Afranius and Petreius, who 
were esteemed competent officers, would be so 
completely out-generaled by Caesar; and he hoped 
that the war in that quarter would at least be pro- 
longed. He judged that he would be more usefully 
employed in using his great influence in the East to 
raise and train a fresh army, which might perhaps be 
able to restore his power in Italy, while Caesar was 
occupied in Spain, and would at the worst form a 
second line of defence. 

Caesar returned from Brundisium to Rome, where 
he arrived about the end of March, and then set out 
for Spain. The Spanish campaign, after some weeks 
of much danger and anxiety for Caesar, ended tri- 
umphantly in the month of August by the surrender 
of all the Pompeian forces. The failure of his lieu* 

* Suetonius, Jul^ 34. 





COIN OF C/ESAR. 
(Cohen.) 





NERO AND CLAUDIUS. 
(Cohen.) 





NERO AND AQRIPPINA. 
(Cohen.) 



49 B.c.l Public Opinion in Italy. 327 

tenants in Illyricum and the overthrow of Curio's 
army in Africa were drawbacks which Caesar's per- 
sonal success far more than compensated. By the 
end of the year he was again at Brundisium, ready to 
cross over for the decisive struggle on the other side 
of the Adriatic. 

Cicero's letters to Atticus enable us to trace, 
almost day by day, the fluctuations in the hopes, 
the wishes, and the opinions of the people of 
Italy during these eventful months. 

J & 49 B.C. 

The first news that Caesar was actually 
in armed rebellion shocked and disgusted all mod- 
erate men. They were moved by the spectacle 
of the city left without Senate or magistrates, 
and of Pompey in flight — " the whole 

4. ( • • • U A Jan - 18 - 

aspect of opinion is changed ; every 
one now thinks that no terms should be made 
with Caesar." * The Italians however showed 
themselves by no means ready to take 
arms in the quarrel, and the conscripts J an - 2 3- 
came in slowly and unwillingly, f A month later the 
feeling against Caesar has considerably cooled down. 
Cicero reports from Capua % — "there is no in- 
dignation of any class, nor even of 
individuals publicly expressed. There 
is some feeling among loyal men, but it is blunted 
as usual ; and (as I have clear evidence) the rabble 
and the lowest classes are keen on the other side, 
and many anxious for revolution," 



*AdAtl. y vii., 11, 4. 
\AdAtt. y vii., 13, 2. 
% Ad Ait. y viii., 3, 4. 



328 The Civil War. [49 B.C. 

By the 1st of March the news of Caesar's great 

success at Corfinium and of the generosity he 

showed to his prisoners has caused a 

49 B.C. 

strong revulsion in his favour.* " Just 
see what a man this is into whose power the com- 
monwealth has fallen, how keen, how 
watchful, how well prepared ! I de- 
clare that if he puts no one to death and robs no 
one of his goods, he will become the object of 
affection to those who were most in dread of 
him. I have much conversation with men from 
the borough-towns and with the country people. 
They care for absolutely nothing except their 
farms, and their bits of houses and money/' 
The threatening language reported from the Re- 
publican headquarters, and the determination which 
the Optimates expressed, to regard all neutrals 
as enemies, heightened by contrast the impres- 
sion made by Caesar's moderation. " The one, 
alas that it should be so, earns applause in the worst 
of causes ; the other in the best of causes nothing 
but reproach." f By the 4th of March we find this 
current of opinion in full flood. " The 

Mar. 4. 

country towns," writes Cicero,^: " hold 
Caesar for a god ; and there is no pretence about 
their feelings, as there was when they made vows for 
Pompey in his sickness. It comes to this ; whatever 
mischief this Pisistratus refrains from committing, 
they are as grateful to him as if he had stopped 



*AdAtt. y viii., 13. 
f Ad Atl., viii., 9, 3. 
% Ad Ait., viii., 16. 



49 B.c.l Public Opinion in Italy. 329 

some one else from committing it. They hope that 
he will be all that is kindly ; whereas they dread 
Pompey in his anger. ,, 

Caesar was particularly happy in allaying the fears 
of the monied men, who had expected a national 
bankruptcy as the result of his victory. He devised 
an excellent plan for tiding over the difficulties of 
the money market, while doing substantial justice 
both to debtors and creditors. He ordained that it 
should be open to debtors to discharge their obli- 
gations by the tender of land, which was to be 
received at a valuation, calculated on what it would 
have fetched before the Civil War broke out.* This 
was a bitter disappointment to many of Caesar's 
bankrupt supporters, who seem to have forgotten 
that Caesar was now no longer the penniless praetor 
of thirteen years ago. Early in the next year Caelius 
Rufus, the most audacious of the malcontents, 
ventured to bring forward revolutionary proposals on 
his own account, and, when they failed, to attempt, 
along with the exile Milo, an insurrection in which 
both lost their lives. In a wild letter to Cicero, f 



* Cicero, writing after Caesar's death, blames his law of debt as 
impairing the sanctity of contracts {De Off., ii., 24). This has gen- 
erally been explained by the statement of Suetonius (Jul., 42), that 
all interest hitherto paid was to be deducted from the principal. If, 
however, Caesar's law really contained such a clause, his silence 
about it in his own account of the law {Bell. Ciz\ t iii., 1) and his 
severe comments on Caelius' schemes of repudiation {Bell. Civ. % iii., 
20) are difficult to interpret. I am inclined to think that Suetonius 
has been misinformed, and that Cicero's criticisms apply to the 
measure as Caesar himself describes it, 

\Ad Fam.i viii., 17. 



330 The Civil War. [49 b.c. 

written immediately before his revolt, Caelius gave 
unconscious testimony to the sagacity with which 
Caesar had discarded the bad traditions of his party f 
while declaring that every one at Rome is now for 
Pompey, he is obliged to add " except a few money- 
lenders." From this time onward the equestrian 
order may be counted as among Caesar's partisans. 

In the midst of a people thus drifting, how was 
Cicero to act ? Honour and duty showed him his 
place in the Republican camp ; but many accidents 
and many doubts delayed his arrival there. He 
had been nominated by Pompey to take charge of 
the Campanian coast ; and partly owing to a mis- 
understanding he had not quitted his post to join 
his leader, when the disaster of Corfinium occurred. 
Caesar advanced on the very day of 
• * * the surrender (21st of February) and 
Cicero's road to Brundisium was barred. In any 
case he would not have gone,* for he was at the 
moment in the very depths of trouble and perplexity, 
and wanted time to recognise his duty and to steady 
his resolution. Meanwhile he had been constantly 
deluded by the hope that a peace might still be ar- 
ranged. After crossing the Rubicon, Caesar made 
fresh proposals through his cousin Lucius, which 
reached Pompey in Samnium on the 22d of January.f 
By these, Caesar offered to give up all the points at 
issued ; he would surrender his provinces to the suc- 
cessors nominated by the Senate, and would come 



* Ad Att, viii., 12, 3. 
f Ad Att. y vii., 14, 1. 
% AdFam., xvi., 12, 3. 



55 B.C.] Negotiations. 331 

himself to Rome to sue personally for the consulship ; 
Pompey was to retire to his Spanish province. The 
only condition attached was that the Republicans 
should dismiss their levies. The terms were accepted 
by Pompey and the consuls with the sole proviso 
that Caesar should likewise withdraw from the posts 
he had occupied in Italy. But Csesar, like Napoleon, 
made it his practice to push on his military opera- 
tions all the more vigorously when he had begun to 
negotiate. He was advancing day by day ; and when 
Lucius arrived at his camp, he rejected the condition 
that he should withdraw his garrisons. His offer 
certainly had not been sincere. It is probable, in- 
deed, that at this time neither party trusted the 
other, and that each suspected that the adversary 
would take advantage of the preliminaries of peace 
only to strengthen his military position. Cicero, how- 
ever, seems to have had no suspicion of this, and so 
late as the 3d of February * he evidently believes 
that Caesar will stand to his offer ; " he is a lost man 
else.'' Cicero's intention during these days was to 
go with Pompey to Spain, that he might have no 
part in the coming iniquities of Caesar as consul. 
Even when this negotiation had fallen through, 
Caesar continued to amuse Cicero with hopes that a 
peace might still be arranged, and that he himself 
might act as mediator. Balbus and Oppius, Caesar's 



* Ad Att., vii., 18, 1. It is to be noticed that next day he received 
by enclosure from Atticus a letter written by Curio to Furnius (pre- 
sumably a few days earlier) in which Curio, with a frankness for which 
Caesar would not have thanked him, openly scoffed at the mission of 
Lucius. (Ad Ait., vii., 19.) 



33 2 The Civil War. [49 B.C. 

confidential agents, were constantly urging Cicero to 
this course,* and protesting that Caesar would be 
only too happy to put an end to the war ; they like- 
wise enclose letters of Caesar, appealing to the clem- 
ency he has shown as an evidence of his desire for 
reconciliation. Cicero wrote and published f an 
elaborate letter to Caesar which he hoped might 
pave the way for peace ; and in the meantime he 
preserved, so far as might be, the neutral attitude 
proper to a possible mediator between the parties. 
" I have refused," he writes, \ " to be a leader in a 
civil war, so long as any negotiations for peace are 
afoot. ... If there is war, as I think there will 
be, I shall not be found wanting in my duty." 

These last words give a faithful presentation of 
Cicero's deliberate resolve, and his action never 
really swerves from the path thus marked out ; but 
in his constant exchange of letters with Atticus, his 
only consolation in this dreary time, we find his mind 
working over every possible topic of hesitation and 
anxiety. He criticises Pompey's strategy in a way 
which reveals his own plentiful ignorance of the art 
of war. Cicero seems to have thought that military 
movements could be conducted in obedience to 
sentimental considerations. He first urged Pompey 
not to abandon the city of Rome, " his country for 
which and in which it would have been a noble deed 
to die." § Next he blames him bitterly for not going 



* Ad Att., viii., 15, A and ix., 7, A. 
\ Ad Att., ix., II, A. Compare viii., 9. 
\ Ad Att., vii., 26, 2. 
$ Ad Att., viii., 2, 2. 



49 B .C] Cicero s jfudgments. 333 

to the support of Domitius at Corfinium ; and when 
it comes to Pompey's resolve to leave Italy, he is 
almost in despair. How can he join Pompey in 
bearing arms against his country ? What does pos- 
terity think of Hippias and Tarquin and Coriola- 
nus, who did the same ? * " Is not his cause then a 
good one ? Nay, it is the best in the world ; but it 
will be played for, mark my words, most foully." f 
Pompey will starve out the Roman People ; he will 
bring hosts of Thracians and Colchians and Armen- 
ians to invade Italy ; he will ravage, burn, and rob. 
Again it occurs to him that he is staking too much 
on a single life, that Pompey is after all a man, that 
he is subject each year to grave sickness,:}: that a 
thousand chances might cut him off, " but that our 
city and nation ought, so far as in us lies, to be pre- 
served to eternity." § The threatening language of 
the Optimates and the prospect of a victory, cruel as 
that of Sulla, likewise affect him painfully ; and it is 
to be noticed that at this time he is inclined to in- 
clude Pompey in the same condemnation with his 
followers on the score of cruelty. Nay, he some- 
times writes as if he fancied that Pompey no less 
than Caesar was aiming at a despotism, | or that he 
might sacrifice the Republic and Cicero (as he had 
done at Luca) to Caesar as the price of a private 
reconciliation. T When all was over, and Cicero had 

* Ad Ait., ix., 10, 3. 
f Ad Att. y ix., 7, 4. 
% Ad Ait., viii., 2, 3. 
§ Ad Ait. , ix., 10, 3. 
I Ad Att., viii., 11, 2. 
% Ad Ait., x., 8, 5. 



334 The Civil War. [49 b.c. 

gathered by personal intercourse fuller knowledge of 
the doings and intentions of his associates, he was 
careful to correct these hasty judgments; he 
acknowledges Pompey to have been " loyal and 
stainless and of faith unshaken/* * and he expressly 
exempts him from the charges of savagery which he 
records against the mass of his party.f But for 
the moment, these doubts and suspicions added 
painfully to Cicero's embarrassments. 

The blacker the fortunes of the Republicans look, 
the more Cicero is determined to throw in his lot 
with them. When Caesar is swooping down on 
Brundisium, and Pompey 's life seems in danger, he 
breaks out % in the bitter self-reproach of Achilles : 
" Let me die at once, since it was not mine to help 
my friend in death ; far from his fatherland he fell, 
and found not me beside him to ward off woe." § 
A few days later he writes || : "I seem 

March 11. , , , . 

to myself to have lost my wits from the 
first ; and one thing torments me, that I did not 
follow Pompey, when he was falling or rather rushing 
headlong to ruin, like any private soldier in the 
ranks. . . . Now my affection for him re-awakens, 
now I cannot bear*the loss of him, now neither 
books nor letters nor philosophy give me any relief. 
Day and night, like the caged bird, I look towards 



* Ad Att. t xi., 6, 5. 

f Ad Fam.y vii., 3, 2. 

\ Ad Attain., $,<$. 

§ Homer, Iliad, xviii., 98 (Purves* translation). 

I AdAU. t ix., 10, 2. 



49 B.C.] Cicero s Resolution. 335 

the sea and long to fly away." The climax is reached 
on the 20th, when a false report arrives 
that Caesar has succeeded in blocking 
up the harbour of Brundisium, and that Pompey 
is cut off and surrounded. " Now I lament, now 
I am tormented, when some think me prudent 
and others think me lucky in not having gone along 
with him. It is just the other way ; I never wished 
to share his victory, but would that I were the 
partner of his disaster." * 

The memory of those dreadful days served to 
steady Cicero's purpose, and he came to see clearly 
that there was no place for him in Italy ; the only 
question now was whether he should retire to some 
remote spot, to Malta for instance, or whether he 
should join Pompey in Epirus, But to leave Italy 
at all was no longer easy ; he would not be allowed 
to cross over to the east coast; and to escape by 
sea from a western port he must wait till the 
winter was over, f and in the meantime must con- 
ceal his intentions. 

Caesar was strong in all the material elements of 
success ; " all the rascals in Italy " writes Cicero, \ 
"seem to have flocked to him ; " and these were useful, 
no doubt, in their way to a fighting chief. None 
the less, Caesar seems to have felt keenly the weak 

* Ad Att., ix., 12, 4. 

f The confusion of the Calendar must always be borne in mind. 
The 10th of March, when Pompey crossed the Adriatic, was really 
the 1 8th of January, that is to say, it was just twenty-eight days after 
the winter solstice. 

% Ad Att., ix., 19, I. 



336 The Civil War. [49 B.C. 

point in his own position. All men of character and 
standing were at heart loyal Republicans : taking a 
broad view of the matter, they could not but be 
enemies to Caesar's cause. Csesar did his best to 
remedy this weakness. In the first place he showed 
scrupulous moderation in all his words and even in 
all his deeds, so far as these did not interfere with 
the main military issues. His chivalrous temper 
always inclined him to spare a fallen enemy, and his 
cool head and brave heart made it clear to him that 
his clemency could do him no harm. " I will follow 
your advice," * Caesar writes to Balbus and Oppius, 
" and the more willingly as I had already resolved to 
act as leniently as possible, and to do my best to 
effect a reconciliation with Pompey. Let us exert 
ourselves to recover by such means, if it be pos- 
sible, the good-will of all men, and so secure a 
lasting victory ; our predecessors did not escape 
the hatred which their cruelty aroused ; none of 
them could permanently hold his ground, excepting 
only Sulla, and him I will never imitate. Let us 
conquer on a new plan, and fortify ourselves with 
mercy and kindliness." We have already seen how 
successful this policy was with the rank and file 
of the Italians. 

Secondly, Caesar was unremitting in his efforts 
to draw or to keep to his side any of the distin- 
guished citizens who had not yet finally committed 
themselves against him. His chief success was with 
the two consulars Volcatius Tullus and Servius 



* Ad Att. % ix., 7, c. 1. 



49 B.C.] Overtures to Cicero. 337 

Sulpicius Rufus. Servius was the first lawyer in 
Rome, but in politics he showed himself wanting in 
insight and decision. He allowed his son to accom- 
pany Caesar to Brundisium, to take part in peace 
negotiations, as he hoped, really to assist in attack- 
ing and blockading Pompey.* He was next obliged 
himself to appear in Caesar's Senate at Rome. His 
despair and disgust at the situation were overwhelm- 
ing, and he expressed his sorrows freely in an inter- 
view just before Cicero's departure. " He shed so 
many tears, that I wondered that the fountain of 
them had not been dried up with his continued 
affliction. " f But his timidity prevented his accom- 
panying his friend in his flight from Italy. He had 
committed himself too far, and he had to count, 
sorely against his will, as a Caesarian. 

All Caesar's efforts were directed to inducing Cicero 
to acquiesce in the situation as Sulpicius had done. 
The presence of Cicero would have soothed the minds 
of many, and would have given weight and dignity 
to the remnant of the Senate which could still be 
assembled in Rome. Urgent letters, couched in the 
most flattering language from Caesar himself and 
from his friends pressed Cicero to return, and the 
hope that he might thus aid the cause of peace was 
always dangled before him. On this point, however, 
Cicero was no longer to be deceived, and he stood 
firm in spite of the ordeal (which he would fain have 
avoided) of a personal interview with the " master of 



* Ad Att., ix., 19, 2, and x,, I, 4. 
\ Ad Att,, x., 14, 1. 



338 The Civil War. [49B.C, 

so many legions." This interview took place at 
Formiae. " We were much mistaken, 

March 26. 

when we supposed that Caesar would 
be easy to deal with ; I never saw any one less so. 
He would be discredited, he said, by my refusal, and 
the others would be more unwilling to speak if I did 
not come. I said their case was different. At length, 
' Come/ says he, * and speak for peace.' ' Am I to 
say what I please on the subject ? ' ' Do you suppose,' 
says he, ' that I claim to dictate what you shall say ? ' 
' Then I shall move that the Senate disapproves of 
any expedition to Spain, or of any transport of troops 
to Greece ; and I shall express many regrets about 
Pompey.' * I should object/ says he, ' to a speech 
of that sort.' i So I supposed, and that is my 
reason for not wishing to go to Rome ; I must 
either utter, what I have told you, and much more 
about which I could not hold my tongue, if I were 
on the spot, or else I must stay away.' The end was 
that, to put a stop to the discussion, he begged me 
to think the matter over. This of course I could 
not refuse, and so we parted. I imagine that he is 
much displeased with me ; but I am pleased with 
myself, a feeling that I have not had for this long 
time. . . . Now, if ever, I must call for your 
advice. This makes a fresh departure. I almost 
forgot to mention an ugly remark with which he 
clenched his argument — ' that if he were not to have 
the benefit of my counsel he must follow the advice 
of those who would give it, and stick at nothing.' " * 
Cicero's mind was now made up, and he only 
*AdAtt. t ix.. 18. 



49 B.C.I Cicero yoins Pompey. 339 

looked for an opportunity of flight. His daughter 
indeed urged him to await the issue of the Spanish 
campaign, which was now commencing ; but this 
idea he entirely discarded, holding that it would 
be even more his duty to shake himself loose from 
Caesar, if he were victorious than if he were beaten.* 
There were difficulties in the way of escape. 
Antony, who was left in command in Italy, informed 
Cicero that he could let no one go without Caesar's 
permission. He pretended acquiescence, and took 
precautions to elude the vigilance of Antony's spies, 
even dropping during the last fortnight his corre- 
spondence with Atticus for fear that the letters 
might fall into wrong hands. Meanwhile he secretly 
prepared a vessel at Caieta, as soon 
" as the first swallow appeared," and 
from thence he set sail on the 3d of June (really 19th 
of April) for Pompey's headquarters. 

The year 48 B.C. saw the conflict between the two 
great commanders in person. The strategy was ad- 
mirable on both sides, full of daring and genius on 
the part of Caesar, and of skill and prudence on the 
part of Pompey. The campaign in Epirus after 
many vicissitudes ended favourably for Pompey, who 
beat Caesar out of the lines in which he had attempted 
to enclose him at Dyrrachium. Caesar was as great 
in defeat as in victory ; he succeeded in extricating 
his army from the pursuit, and marched right across 
the peninsula, thereby transferring the war to fresh 
ground on the eastern coasts of Greece. Pompey, 
who had command of the great northern road passed 

*AdAtt.,x. t 8, 2. 



34-0 The Civil War. £48 B.C. 

by a parallel route into Macedonia, and the two 
were again face to face. Pompey knew that he 
ought still to play a waiting game ; but he lacked 
firmness to resist the urgency of his associates, who 
were elated with the victory which had been gained, 
and thought themselves now in a position to crush 
Caesar at once * Pompey had indeed performed 
wonders in raising and training in a single year an 
army which had held its own, so far, with credit. 
But his success came to an end, as soon as he 
allowed his own judgment to be overborne by the 
clamours of the ignorant Nobles. His troops re- 
quired every advantage which consummate general- 
ship could give them ; they were not fit for a soldier's 
battle on fair ground with the veteran legions of 
Gaul, and the day of Pharsalia ended 

Aug., 48 B.C. 

in their utter overthrow. Pompey fled 
to Egypt where he was immediately murdered by 
order of the ministers of the boy-king who had suc- 
ceeded his father " the Piper." 

In spite of great military talents and in spite of 
honest but clumsy efforts to do his duty, Pompey's 
life had been a failure, because he aspired to guide 
the politics of his country without any political 
principles to carry into effect and without any 
party to which to be loyal. The errors of the 
statesman entailed the ruin of the soldier, and fate 
denied him even a soldier's grave. It was given to 
one of the petty Eastern Courts, so long the creatures 
of Pompey's will, to extinguish a personality which 
ever since the death of Sulla had occupied the fore- 

* Plutarch, Pomp. % 67. 



46 B.C.] Cicero Returns to Italy. 34 1 

most place on the great stage of the Roman world — 

*' Sunt lacrimse rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt." 

Cicero had remained in Epirus along with Cato 
and Varro, and the news of Pharsalia reached them 
at Dyrrachium.* Cato resolved to fight to the last, 
and took refuge with the more obstinate of his ad- 
herents in Africa, where the Caesarian governor Curio 
had been overwhelmed and slain the year before by 
the help of Juba, King of Numidia. Cicero and 
Varro considered that the issue of the conflict must 
be held to have been decided by the defeat of 
Pompey. Cicero returned once more to Italy, land- 
ing at Brundisium about the end of October in the 
year 48 B.C. 

It was doubtful at first whether he would be al- 
lowed to remain. Antony, who held Italy as Master 
of the Horse (for Caesar had been proclaimed Dicta- 
tor immediately after the battle of Pharsalia), had 
received orders that no Pompeians were to return to 
Italy without leave. Cicero, however, was able to 
show that Dolabella had written to him by Caesar's 
direction, requesting him to return at once, f This 
caused an exception to be made for him in the gen^ 
eral edict of prohibition. He remained, 
therefore, at Brundisium for the next sepCtf. B.C. 
ten months in a miserable condition of 
mind and body. The climate affected his health, 
and his nerves seem to have completely broken 
down un der the doubts and difficulties of the situa- 

* De Div., i., 32, 68, and ii„ 55, 114. 



34 2 The Civil War. [47 b.c. 

tion. His complaints are consistent only so far as 
they are always directed against what he esteems 
his own blindness and folly. Sometimes he blames 
himself for having taken arms at all ; more often 
he is afraid that he has disgraced himself by not 
following the fortunes of his party to the last in 
Africa. Caesar is detained in Egypt and in Asia, so 
that he cannot come to speech with him, and he 
fears that this will prevent a reconciliation. He 
hears that his brother and nephew have turned 
against him, and mean to make their own peace 
by accusing him to Caesar.* This does not prevent 
his writing to the Dictator on behalf of 

March, 47 B.C. ^ . S . 

Quintus, protesting that the responsi- 
bility of the flight from Italy was all his own, and 
that his brother had only borne him company, f 

At the same time some action of his wife, as to 
which we have only obscure hints, caused him much 
displeasure. His beloved daughter was in distress 
on account of the neglect and infidelities of her hus- 
band, and Dolabella's conduct in public matters was 
also most painful to his father-in-law. He took ad- 
vantage of Caesar's absence to dabble in socialistic 
and revolutionary legislation, much as Caelius had 
done a year before. This led to riots which Antony 
put down by military force ; eight hundred persons 
are said to have been killed in these disturbances. 
Dolabella, however, stopped short of the extrava- 
gances of Caelius, and Caesar checked and forgave 
him. In the meantime his actions appear to Cicero 

* See above, p. 79. 
f Ad Att t% xi. T 12, 2. 



47 B.C.] Reconciliation with Gzsar. 343 

only a foretaste of the general reign of rascality 
which is to be expected from the victory of such a 
crew. This adds to Cicero's despair. " I see no 
chance of peace" he writes,* " and the 

• -11 T 4.U- 1 U • July, 47 B.C. 

party now in power will, 1 think, bring 

itself to ruin, even if there be no adversary to 

oppose it." 

Caesar was occupied with war and pleasure in 
Egypt during the first half of the year 47, and trust- 
worthy news from him was wanting. When he did 
write, Cicero doubted f whether the letter was really 
Caesar's. Thus the comfort to be derived from the 
Dictator's intentions regarding him was delayed. 
Caesar, when he had time to attend to the matter, 
behaved as generously as possible. He pardoned 
Quintus at a word, " would not even allow himself 
to be entreated," $ and expressed himself so kindly 
about Marcus Cicero that his brother wrote heartily 
in congratulation. § Caesar likewise sent word to 
Cicero to keep his laurelled fasces, |j thus ignoring 
the part he had taken in the Civil War, and indica- 
ting that he looked on him merely as the pro-consul 
on his way home from Cilicia and claiming the hon- 
our of a triumph. 

After settling the affairs of Egypt and Asia Caesar 
returned in the month of September, and Cicero 
met him somewhere in southern Italy. When he 



* Ad Att., xi., 25, 3. 
f Ad Att., xi., 16, I. 
% Ad Att., xi., 22, 1. 
% Ad Att., xi., 23, 2. 



344 



The Civil War. 



[47 B.C. 



perceived Cicero advancing to meet him, Caesar dis- 
mounted from his horse and came forward to salute 
him, and the two walked together conversing alone 
far along the road.* The reconciliation was com- 
plete, and Cicero was free to return to his home and 
his family. 



* Plutarch, Cicero, 39. 




CHAPTER XIX 

GdESAR'S DICTATORSHIP. 

47-44 b.c. 

ROM Caesar's return to Rome 
at the end of September 47 
B.C., we may date the com- 
mencement of his direct re- 
sponsibility for the central 
government of the Empire. 
His rule lasted for thirty-two * 
months in all, but of these 
eighteen were passed in Africa 
and Spain, and two dangerous 
wars had to be waged in the course of them. 

In this brief period Caesar showed great activity 
as a legislator. Besides a number of laws called by 
the name of Julius, f which defined or consolidated 
existing arrangements with slight modifications of 
detail, we find many fresh projects, from the increase 

* It must be remembered that three extra months were given to the 
year 46 B.C. in order to bring the Calendar straight. 

f E. g., the Leges Juliae Municipalise de vi, de majestate, de Uteris 
legationibus (modifying Cicero's), de pr ovine lis (of length of tenure), 
de sacerdotiis, and de judiciis (abolishing Pompey's third decury). 

345 




346 Cczsar's Legislation. [45 B.C. 

of the patriciate and the borrowing of an amended 
Egyptian * Calendar to sumptuary laws and plans 
for roads and drainage works. Caesar, as Dictator, 
undid two pieces of mischief which had been the 
work of his creature Clodius, by dissolving the "col- 
legia" or street-guilds (see p. 230) and by restricting 
the distribution of corn. The enlargement of the 
boundary of Italy by the grant of the Roman fran- 
chise to the inhabitants of the country between the 
river Po and the Alps was a necessary consequence 
of Caesar's victory. These " Transpadanes " had 
been his warm supporters, and he had always main- 
tained that they were already by right Roman citi- 
zens, f Outside the natural limits of Italy, Caesar 
likewise made certain amplifications both of the 
Roman and of the Latin franchise ; the most im- 
portant was the grant of Latin rights to Sicily. He ex- 
tended to the province of Asia a wise system, which 
had long ruled in Spain, by which the subject com- 
munities collected their own taxes, and paid out of 
them the tribute due to Rome ; and he revived an 
excellent project of Caius Gracchus by founding 
Roman colonies at Carthage and at Corinth. 

* The principle of the Julian Year (t. e., 365 days with an extra day 
added every fourth year) is to be found in a bilingual inscription of 
238 B.C. (the decree of Canopus) now in the Museum of Cairo. The 
distinguished mathematicians and astronomers whom Caesar consulted 
(Plutarch, Cces., 59) perhaps did not think it necessary to inform him 
that the work had been done two centuries before. 

f It is difficult to say on what the claim was founded, but that it 
must have been very strong is proved by the admission of so rigid an 
aristocrat as the elder Curio. Cicero informs us (De Off., iii., 22, 88) 
that Curio used to say : " The claim of the Transpadanes has right 
on its side, but expediency forbids, and that is enough." 




BUST OF CAESAR IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM,, 



46 B.C.] Th e Provinces. 347 

The subject peoples gained incidentally by the 
establishment of a despotism. Cicero hits the truth 
when he calls the provinces of Rome " Caesar's es- 
tates." " Sardinia," he says,* " is the worst farm 
which Caesar owns, but he does not neglect it for all 
that." It is clear that it could not be in the interests 
of a master that anyone except himself should shear 
his sheep. No despot, unless he were a man of 
feeble will and character, would tolerate such vice- 
gerents as we have seen the Roman Republic toler- 
ate in Verres and Appius Claudius. It is recorded 
even of Domitian, that he kept the provincial 
governors from misdoing. We have no record of 
Caesar's dealings with the proconsuls, but we maybe 
sure that the control he exercised would be firm and 
intelligent. Thus in the mere abolition of the rule 
of persons who were members of a sovereign cor- 
poration and the substitution of governors, who were 
hardly less absolutely at the mercy of Caesar than 
the subjects over whom they ruled, a new guaranty 
was found for tolerable administration. The pro- 
vincials soon learned to appreciate their own interests 
in these matters. They had mostly stood for Pom- 
pey against Caesar, but they showed a very different 
temper when in the next Civil War Caesarism was 
ranged against the Republic. By their experience 
of Caesar's rule they had learned that their servitude 
was likely to be more endurable, if no freedom were 
left in the world to contrast with it. 

The changes which I have been recording were 
not unimportant in themselves, but they are hardly 

* Ad Fam. % ix., 7, 2. 



348 Choice of Policy. 

- — ■ ■ - 1 ■ ■» 

mentioned in Cicero's correspondence. Their in- 
terest was in truth eclipsed by the presence of the 
great problem which called on Caesar and the 
Romans for solution.* The world stood at the 
parting of two ways ; Rome was destined, for good 
or for evil, to absorb into her citizenship all civilised 
men ; and it rested with Caesar to decide what should 
be the nature of the new Cosmopolitan State. The 
Roman Empire might be organised on one of two 
systems. The first was the obvious and easy ex- 
pedient, familiar to the world since the days of the 
Pyramids, of a despotism, dependent only on the 
swords of a professional soldiery. This required 
nothing but a trained army and a skilful general for 
its inception. Its results were equally sure : the 
periodical recurrence of civil war whenever the 
soldiers could not agree on a chief ; occasional 
stretches of decent government when accident 
brought a skilful administrator to the head of 
affairs ; wild freaks of tyranny when the chances of 
the succession turned out unluckily ; and through- 
out a steady degradation of character, the loss of 
manhood, and the destruction of the capacity for 
self-government in the civilised human being. All 
hopes of freemen, all ideals of political aspiration, 
all causes worth fighting for, perished along with the 
Roman Republic, and the world entered on a period 
of its history, in which its life seems to be " weary, 
stale, flat, and unprofitable." The unmixed despot- 
ism which Caesar established was somewhat tempered 
by the wisdom of Augustus ; yet the essential mis- 

* See above, p s 167. 



Fruits of Imperialism. 349 

chief remained, and the result was inevitable. Three 
out of four of the Roman emperors perished by vio- 
lence, and each mutiny or assassination or civil war 
was the occasion for fresh degradation of the citizens. 
The Italian nation, which under happier auspices 
would have been the centre from which liberty and 
self-government might spread over the civilised 
world, only led the way in abasement and servility. 
Gibbon has summed up for us the story of its fate 
in words which may be repeated with little change 
for each of the nations which lay beneath the shadow 
of the Roman Empire. " The forms of the constitu- 
tion, which alleviated or disguised their abject 
slavery, were abolished by time or violence ; the 
Italians alternately lamented the presence or the 
absence of the sovereigns whom they detested or 
despised ; and the succession of five centuries in- 
flicted the various evils of military license, capricious 
despotism, and elaborate oppression. " * It has even 
been argued, though the argument is to my mind 
far from convincing, that the fragments of liberty 
which Augustus retained cost more than they were 
worth in friction and inconvenience, and that if the 
ideas of freedom and self-government, the only 
political ideas worth having, were in truth absolutely 
beyond realisation in practice for the world as it was, 
then the more outspoken despotism of Julius or of 
Diocletian was the lesser of the two evils. Even so, 
such a plea serves but to extenuate. The work of 
Caesar may be excused as a miserable necessity ; it 



* Gibbon, ch. 36. 



350 Ccesar's Dictatorship. 

is not, like the work of Washington or of Cavour of 
of Bismarck, an achievement to glory in. 

It is not without regret that we contemplate this lame 
and impotent conclusion to the life-long toil of a great 
man. Caesar was unsurpassed as a soldier, as a scholar, 
as a gentleman, as a leader and manager of men ; in 
him the saying of Cervantes finds its fullest realisa- 
tion, that " the lance has not dulled the pen, nor the 
pen the lance." But after all the tree is known by 
its fruit, and Caesarism is condemned by the charac- 
ter which the despotism necessarily stamped upon 
the generations bred under it. We must look for its 
perfect work in the subjects of the later Empire, 
ground down by an intolerable burden of taxation, 
with souls which had lost all nobler political interests, 
trusting to hired soldiers to fight for them, no longer 
capable of managing their own concerns nor of strike 
ing a blow in defence of their own hearths. All the 
horrors of the barbarian invasion and all the darkness 
of the Middle Ages were not a price too heavy to 
pay for the infusion of fresher and stronger blood, 
and the revival of the sense of dignity in mankind. 

Such was the path in which Caesar willed that the 
world should walk. The other alternative before 
him was to undertake a complicated and difficult 
task, requiring the highest constructive statesman- 
ship. The Italian people was still sound at heart ; 
Italy still loved liberty and hated despotism ; her 
sons could still endure with patience, and dare with 
energy, and die with heroism around the eagles. 
When a people displays such qualities, a statesman 
need not despair of organising it into a free nation. 




COIN OF C/ESAR. 
(Babeloei.) 




JULIUS OCSAR. 

FROM COIN IN BRITISH MUSEUM. 





COIN OF C/ESAR. 

HEAD OF VENUS. /ENEAS AND ANCHISES. 

{Cohen.) 



Ccesar's Lost Opportunity. 351 

In this case it was no ordinary nation which called 
for organisation, but one whose fate must determine 
likewise the fate of the world. Never in the history 
of the race has such an opportunity been laid in the 
hands of a legislator ; but a man was wanting to take 
advantage of it. That Caesar, with all his genius, 
could not rise to the height of this task is a matter 
for sorrow, not for anger. For such a construction 
was in truth no simple or easy thing. It would have 
required a modification at least of slavery, and the 
extinction of the slave-trade, personal military service 
as the duty, and the power of choosing and control- 
ling his rulers as the right of every Roman, and, 
finally, the gradual extension of the citizenship with 
political as well as personal privileges to the subjects 
of the Empire. A constitution was called for, which 
would have given room for the personal policy of a 
great statesman, while it carefully cherished every 
germ of independence and self-reliance in the citizens. 
Despotic methods of government may possibly find 
justification under certain circumstances, as a neces- 
sary transition to something better; the damning 
fact about Caesarism is, that it left no niche in which 
any fresh growth of freedom could find root. 

In a very half-hearted and imperfect way Caesar's 
great successor seems to have recognised some of the 
needs of the world in this matter, and to have striven 
to find a place in his system for other powers and 
activities beside his own. Thus he averted for a 
time the full degradation of life under a despotism. 
The elder Caesar had much better chances than his 
nephew. He had never been under the necessity of 



35 2 Cczsars Dictatorship. [46 b.c 

shedding blood except on the battle-field ; his wise 
and noble clemency predisposed all hearts in his 
favour; even Republicans were not anxious for his 
defeat in the last struggle in Spain, and 
preferred, as Cassius said to Cicero, 
"the old kindly master to an untried and angry 
one. ,, * The Romans were willing to accept any 
tolerable compromise at his hands. But of compro- 
mise Caesar would not hear a word. He seems to 
have been utterly blind to the evils of a despotism, 
and utterly indifferent to the preservation of the dig- 
nity and manliness of the Romans. With relent- 
less and foolish consistency he pushed the doctrine 
of his own supremacy to its uttermost conclusions. 
The first act of this so-called democratic leader was 
to deprive the popular assemblies of the little power 
that had remained to them under the later Republic. 
In legislation, the assent of the people had already 
become merely formal, and so it remained ; but in 
elections some power of choice had hitherto really 
lain with the voters. This was now taken away by 
the Dictator, who granted letters of recommendation 
to his candidates, and so had them returned without 
opposition. The elections indeed might as well not 
have been held at all. Caesar lost no opportunity of 
degrading the Republican magistracies in the eyes 
of the people. Sometimes the State was left for 



* Ad Fam., xv., 19, 4. The reference is to Pompey's son Cngeus, 
who was killed in Spain. Cassius was much in dread of him. " You 
know how foolish he is, and how apt to mistake cruelty for manli- 
ness. He always thought we were laughing at him, and I fear 
repartees delivered in boorish fashion at point of sword." 



46 B.c.l Degradation of the Senate. 353 

months without consuls or praetors, and Caesar nomi- 
nated prefects to do their work ; sometimes a num- 
ber of consulships were crowded into a short space, 
and Rome now contained a consular * in whose term 
of office " no one had breakfasted." 

Caesars treatment of the Senate was even more 
inexcusable than his action towards the People 
or towards the magistrates. It can only be 
explained on the supposition that his head was 
turned by the giddy height of supreme power, 
and that he was no longer the cool and sober 
politician who had trod the upward way so skilfully. 
The Senate was the only possible home of free 
speech and independent counsel, yet we find it ex- 
posed in the person of its most distinguished mem- 
bers to wanton insult. Cicero writes f to his friend 
Paetus, who has urged him to remain at Rome and 
take part in public business : " You cite the example 
of Catulus and his time. Where is the resemblance? 
In those days I too was loath to be long away from 
my post in the State. For then we sat on the poop 
of the vessel with our hands to the tiller ; now there 
is scarcely a place for us in the hold. Do you sup- 
pose that any fewer decrees of the Senate will be 
passed if I stay at Naples ? Why, when I am in 
Rome, and in the thick of the Forum, the decrees of 
the Senate are written out at our friend's house \\ 
aye, and if it comes into his head, I am set down as 
one of those who attested the registration, and I get 

* See below, p. 378. 

f Ad Fam., ix., 15, 4. 

\ One would fain hope that the person meant is not Caesar himself. 



354 C cesar's Dictatorship. [46 B.c, 

intelligence of the arrival in Armenia or Syria of 
decrees, said to have been passed on my proposition, 
before I have heard a word about the matter. Pray 
do not think I am jesting. I assure you I have 
received letters from princes in the uttermost parts 
of the earth, returning thanks for the salutation as 
' King/ which had been given them on my proposal 
— people of whom I was so far from knowing that 
they had been saluted kings, that I had never even 
heard of their existence." 

Cicero was willing, as he said to Varro,* " to lend 
a hand, if not as an architect, then even as a mason, 
to the reconstruction of the commonwealth." There 
is no reason to suppose indeed that he any more 
than Caesar had a solution for the almost inextricable 
difficulties which presented themselves in the way of 
combining liberty with empire. But Cicero at least 
held fast to that which Caesar ignored. He felt that 
it was apostasy and cowardice to slide back from 
the political faith which Greece had delivered once 
for all to the world, that it was of the essence of the 
higher civilisation of the West to protest against 
arbitrary power, to believe in government by discus- 
sion and consent, and in the rule of reason and of 
law. " From the man," he writes, f " who has all 
power in his hands, I see no reason to fear anything, 
except that everything is uncertain when once you 
set law on one side : it is impossible to guarantee a 
future which depends on the will, not to say on the 
caprice, of a single man." 

* Ad Fam. y ix., 2, 5. 
f Ad Fam. % ix., 16, 3, 



46 B.C.] Cicero Upholds Cczsar. 355 

It was long before Cicero gave up the hope that 
after all there was to be " some sort of Free State," 
and that Caesar was destined to be its founder. This 
delusion was fostered, and not unnaturally, by the 
spectacle of Caesar's constant clemency and kindness 
to the conquered. "The all-powerful ruler," he 
writes to an exiled Pompeian * in January, 45 B.C., 
" seems to me to be daily inclining more and more 
to justice and to a reasonable view of things . . . 
Every day something is done with more of lenity 
and liberality than we were expecting." " No one," 
he says in another letter, f " is so much an enemy to 
the cause which Pompey supported with more spirit 
than prudence, as to venture to call us bad men or 
unworthy citizens ; and in this I always admire the 
rectitude, fairness, and good sense of Caesar. He 
never speaks of Pompey, but in the most honour- 
able terms." Cicero is eager to make excuses for 
Caesar. If he delays the restoration of the Republic, 
it is because " Caesar himself is the slave of the 
situation." X " Since," he says, § " I have judged it 
right to live on, I cannot but feel a kindness for the 
man by whose favour life has been granted me. If 
that man desires that there should be a common- 
wealth such as perhaps he wishes, and such as we 
are all bound to pray for, he has no power to 
realise it, so hampered is he by obligations to his 
followers." 



* Trebianus, Ad Fam^ vi., 10, 5* 
\ Ad Fam.> vi., 6, IO. 
%Ad Fam. y ix., 17, 3. 
§ Ad Fam.y ix., 17, 2. 



356 Ccesars Dictatorship. [46 B.C. 

Cicero became a main channel of Caesar's grace 
towards his old comrades, and in the delight of 
serving them committed himself more and more to 
acquiescence in the new government, and to hopes 
based on the personal character and conduct of its 
chief — " nothing* can be better than the ruler him- 
self ; for the rest, men and things are such that, if 
needs be, it is better to hear of them than to see 
them." 

Cicero is the main hope and stay of the exiled 
Pompeians. He is ever writing them letters of 
solace and encouragement, and working assiduously 
for their restoration. " You," writes Aulus Caecinaf 
to Cicero, " must bear the whole burden ; all my 
hopes are staked on you. . . . Only persuade 
yourself that your part is not to do whatever you 
are asked in this business (though that were favour 
enough), but that the whole is your own work ; then 
you will succeed. I fear that my misery makes me 
foolish, or my friendship shameless in heaping 
burdens on you : your own conduct must serve as 
my excuse ; all your life long you have so accus- 
tomed us to see you labouring for your friends, that 
now we who may claim that title do not so much 
beg as requisition your services." To another exile, 
Ampius Balbus, Cicero writes % : "I spoke in your 
cause with more bluntness than my present situation 
justifies; but the very ill-luck proper to my ship- 
wrecked fortunes was overborne by your dearness to 

* Ad Fam. f iv., 4, 5 (to Ser. Sulpicius). 
f Ad Fam., vi., 7, 5. 
X Ad Fam., vi., 12, I. 



46 B.C.] Speech for Ligarius. 357 

me, and by the long friendship between us which 
you have so sedulously cherished. Everything which 
relates to your restoration is promised, pledged, 
guaranteed, determined. I speak from my own 
sight, and knowledge, and participation. " 

Caesar was ready enough to pardon on his own 
account ; but even in cases where he felt specially 
displeased, he was generally willing to give up his 
resentment at Cicero's request. It was thus that 
Cicero saved Quintus Ligarius, the only one of the 
Pompeians, so far as we know, who was publicly and 
formally put on his trial. Cicero defended him at 
Caesar's bar in a brief but interesting speech, which 
he afterwards published by the advice * of Balbus 
and Oppius, and which still survives. The circum- 
stances may best be described in the words of 
Plutarch, f " The story goes that when Quintus 
Ligarius was put on his trial as an enemy to Caesar, 
and Cicero appeared as his advocate, Caesar said to 
his friends : ' We know beforehand that the prisoner 
is a pestilent fellow and a public enemy : what harm 
can it do to listen once again to a speech of Cicero? ' 
But soon he felt himself strangely stirred by Cicero's 
opening words, and as the speech proceeded, in- 
stinct with passion and exquisite in grace, one might 
see rapid changes of colour pass over Caesar's face, 
bearing witness to the tide of emotions ebbing and 
flowing through his mind. At length, when the 
speaker touched on the struggle at Pharsalia, Caesar 
became so agitated that his body trembled, and 

* Ad AM., xiii., 19, 2. 
\ Plutarch, Cic> 39. 



358 Qesars Dictatorship. [46 B .c. 

some papers which he was holding dropped from his 
hand. In the end he was carried by storm, and 
acquitted the accused. " 

Another notable instance of clemency, the pardon 
of Marcus Marcellus, who, as consul in the year 51, 
had taken a prominent part in the opposition to 
Caesar, overpowered the resolution of Cicero not to 
open his lips again in the Senate. " This day," he 
writes* to Servius Sulpicius, " seemed to dawn so 
fairly on me, that I fancied I could see, as it were, 
some vision of the Republic springing to life again. 
. . . When my turn came, I departed from my 
original intention. For I had resolved, not, I assure 
you, from sloth, but from a sense of the aching void 
left by the loss of my old independence, to hold my 
peace for ever. My resolution broke down in the 
presence of Caesar's magnanimity and of the loyalty 
with which the Senate had pressed our friend's 
cause. And so I made a long speech of thanks to 
Caesar; I only fear that by so doing I have debarred 
myself for the future from that decent quiescence 
which was my only consolation in these bad times." 

This speech, too, has been preserved. From the 
enthusiasm with which Cicero speaks of the occasion 
in the confidential letter to his friend, it will readily 
be conceived that the public expression of thanks is 
conveyed in language whose fervour knows no 
bounds. The hyperbolical protestations of gratitude 
and devotion are in painful contrast to the satisfac- 
tion which Cicero afterwards took in Caesar's assassi- 
nation ; but at the moment the speaker was doubtless 

* Ad Fam. t iv., 4, 3. 



46 B.C.] Speech for Marcellus. 359 

sincere in his declarations, as in his hopes. The real 
interest of the speech Pro Marcello lies in the ex- 
pression of these hopes, which Cicero still cherished 
in the summer of the year 46, though Caesar had 
killed them before he himself fell on the fatal Ides 
of March, twenty months later. Cicero told the Dic- 
tator in language guarded indeed, but sufficiently 
explicit, that Rome expected something more from 
him. 

" At this moment, though your achievements have 
embraced the whole State and the preservation of all 
its citizens, yet so far are you from setting the cop- 
ing-stone on your greatest work, that you have not 
yet laid the foundation-stone of that which you de- 
sign. ... If, Caesar, after all your splendid 
deeds, this were to be the final result, that now your 
adversaries are overpowered you should leave the 
commonwealth in the condition in which it at pres- 
ent lies, consider, I pray you, whether your career 
will not seem famous, indeed, but scarcely glorious ; 
for glory, I take it, consists in the tidings, spread 
through the world, of great services done to friends 
or to country or to mankind. This portion, then, of 
your task, is still before you ; this act is still to be 
played ; this work is still unwrought ; you have 
yet to reconstruct the Republic ; you have yet to 
enter on and share with us, amidst all peace and 
quiet, the fruition of your labours. Then, and not till 
then, when you have paid to your country her due, 
and filled up the measure allotted by nature to man, 
it will be time to say that you ' have lived long 
enough.' . . . And yet why count this as your 



360 Ceesars Dictatorship. [46 b.c, 

life, which is hemmed in by the bounds of body and. 
of breath ? Your life is there, there, I say, where it 
will be fresh in the memory of all ages, where pos- 
terity will cherish it, where eternity itself will claim 
it for its own. It is the approval of that time to 
come which you must court, to its good-will you 
must commend yourself. It has much already to 
wonder at in you, now it asks for something to 
praise. Future generations will listen awe-struck, 
doubtless, as they hear or read the tale of all your 
conflicts and all your triumphs. But unless you 
have so designed and framed the constitution as to 
set this city on a sure foundation, your name, though 
it may go forth into all lands, will find no abiding 
resting-place. Among those who are yet to be born 
there will be controversy, as there has been amongst 
ourselves; some will extol your deeds, others per- 
chance will find something wanting, and that the one 
thing needful, unless you quench the coal of civil 
war, by giving life to our State, so that men may 
ascribe the first to the inexorableness of destiny, the 
second to the providence of your design. Labour, 
then, as beneath the eye of that tribunal which will 
give its sentence concerning you many ages hence, a 
sentence perhaps more disinterested than any which 
we can pass to-day ; for posterity will pronounce, un- 
disturbed by favour or hope of advantage, undis- 
turbed, likewise, by passion or by jealousy." * 

When Cicero uttered these words it is clear that 
the question " is there to be any sort of Free State ? " 
had not yet received a definite answer in the nega- 

* Pro Mar cello 1 ch. viii., 25 seg. 



46 B.C.] Cicero s Employments. 361 

tive. Caesar had not yet, to Cicero's mind, finally 
stamped himself a " tyrant." 

Though with many fluctuations and much doubt, 
the tone of Cicero's mind in the latter part of the 
year 46 and the first months of 45 B.C. is on the whole 
cheerful. He has " mourned for the commonwealth 
longer and more bitterly than ever a mother mourned 
for her only son," * and now his thoughts dwell by 
choice on the redeeming features of the situation, 
or turn to other interests and pursuits. He was on 
terms of intimacy with many of Caesar's personal 
friends, especially with Balbus, Oppius, Matius, 
Hirtius, Pansa, and Dolabella. These were most 
useful to him in the negotiations for the pardon 
of his Pompeian comrades. He gives special credit 
to Pansa for his help. " He is an example," Cicero 
writes to Cassius (who " held Epicurus strong "), " of 
the doctrine f which you have begun to doubt, that 
righteousness is desirable on its own account. He 
has relieved many from their distress, and he has 
shown himself humane in these bad times, and so 
the good-will of honest men goes with him to a 
notable degree." Cicero's social intercourse with 
the younger Caesarians was cheerful and pleasant ; 
they gathered round the old orator to learn from him 
the secrets of his craft, and he amused himself and 
pleased them by giving lessons in declamation, 
"like Dionysius the tyrant," he says, "keeping 
school at Corinth," while they in turn instructed 
him in the new art and science of good living — 

* Ad Fam. y ix., 20, 3. 
\ Ad Fam. t xv., 17, 3. 



362 Life under the Dictatorship. [45 b.c. 

"■ for they are my pupils in speaking, but my tutors in 
dining." * Sometimes indeed he is painfully struck 
by the contrast between these empty rhetorical dis- 
plays and the glorious strife of his old days in the 
Senate and the law courts. " If I ever utter any- 
thing worthy of my ancient name, then I groan like 
Philoctetes in the play, to think that * these shafts 
are spent inglorious on a feathered not an armed 
prey/" f Nevertheless he felt the better for these 
exertions, " in the first place as regards my health, 
which had suffered from the want of exercise to my 
lungs, next because any faculty of speech I may 
have had would have dried up, unless I had refreshed 
it by these declamations ; there is another reason, 
which perhaps you will think worthy of the first 
place : I have been the death of more peacocks than 
you have of young pigeons." X 

With the return of hope, Cicero's sanguine and 
mercurial temperament recovered its elasticity, and 
though the despotism bowed it did not crush him. 
Plutarch says § of Cicero, that " he was by nature 
framed for mirth and jests, and his countenance ex- 
pressed smiles and sunshine." At this period his 
wit played freely on the new situations of politics 
and society ; and the despotism of Csesar, like that 
of Lewis XIV., was " tempered by epigrams." 
Caesar could listen with frank and fearless enjoy- 
ment to strokes of satire directed against himself 
and his system. He even prided himself on his 

* Ad Fa?/?., ix., 16, 7. 
f Ad Fam., vii., 33, 1. 
% Ad Fam., ix., 18, 3. 
§ Plutarch, Comp. Cic. et Dem. t i., 6. 



46 B.C.] Literary Work. 363 

critical acuteness in detecting the true flavour of 
Cicero's jests, and in refusing to be taken in by the 
work of any inferior craftsman. 

" Caesar has a very shrewd literary judgment, and 
just as your brother Servius, one of the best critics 
I ever knew, would say off-hand, ' this verse is 
Plautus', this is not/ because he had an ear trained 
by habits of study and of noting the style of the 
various poets, so I am told, that Caesar, when com- 
piling a collection of jests, would at once reject any 
spurious ones which were brought to him under my 
name. He can do this the more easily at present, 
because his most intimate friends are almost every 
day in my company. Many things drop out in the 
course of conversation which my hearers are good 
enough to consider not devoid of wit and neatness. 
These are regularly reported to him along with 
the news of the day — such are his orders — and so he 
pays no attention to forgeries from outside."* 

This period of suspense from active politics was 
fruitful in literary labour, which was indeed Cicero's 
most plentiful source of contentment. " I must tell 
you/' he writes to Varro, f u that so soon as I re- 
turned home again I was restored to favour by my 
old friends, my books. . . . They have forgiven 
my neglect, and summon me back to the old in- 
timacy." The works of the next year 
and a half are chiefly on the art of d^^Vsc 
rhetoric. In the Brutus and the 
Orator ad Brutum Cicero pursues the discussions 

* Ad Fam., ix., 16, 4. 
f Ad Fam., ix., 1, 2. 



364 " Cato " and " Anti-Cato. " [46 B.C. 

begun in the dialogue ZV Oratore. The Brutus 
is especially valuable and interesting, on account of 
the personal experiences which Cicero there records 
of his training and practice as a speaker. Several 
extracts from it are to be found in earlier chapters. 

In the same year (46 B.C.) Cicero was engaged with 
a panegyric of Cato. The theme seems to have been 
suggested to him by his republican friends soon 
after the suicide of his hero at Utica in April. It 
was, as he says,* a problem fit for Archimedes, to 
write on such a topic without giving deadly offence 
to the party in power. " Cato cannot be fairly 
treated, unless I make it a theme for praise that he 
struggled against the state of things which now is 
and which he saw coming, and that rather than look 
on its realisation he took refuge in the grave." He 
succeeded, however, entirely to his satisfaction. 
Caesar was too generous to take offence at praises 
of his fallen enemy, and Brutus was encouraged to 
follow Cicero's example and publish a work in his 
uncle's honour. We have a curious record of Caesar's 
criticism on the two in a letter to Balbus. He had 
read Cicero's Cato, he said, over and over again, and 
had enriched his mind in the process, but Brutus' 
book flattered him with the idea that he could write 
better himself, f In the midst of the occupations of 
his Spanish campaign the Dictator found time to 
pen an Anti-Cato in answer to Cicero's panegyric. 
While inveighing against Cato, Caesar spoke in high 
terms of Cicero, whom he compared for eloquence 

* Ad Att., xii., 4, 2. 
f Ad Att. t xiii. , 46, 2. 



46 B.C.] Divorce of Terentia. 365 

and for statesmanship to Pericles and Theramenes. * 
These compliments called forth a suitable letter in 
reply from Cicero. " I wrote," he says to Atticus, 
" precisely as I should have done to an equal ; for I 
really think highly of his work, as I mentioned to 
you in conversation, so that without flattery I was 
able to write what he, I think, will be pleased to 
read."f 

At some time during the year 46 the estrangement 
between Cicero and his wife Terentia ended in a 
divorce. We hear very little about this in his letters. 
He would hardly write on such a subject to any one 
but Atticus, and probably Atticus was with him when 
matters came to a crisis. Soon afterwards Cicero 
took a second wife, a young and wealthy woman 
named Publilia, who had been his ward. In the in- 
terest of this new connection, in literature and in the 
pleasures of society, graver cares were for the 
moment forgotten. " I would write more at length," 
he says in a letter % to Cassius, " if I had any non- 
sense to write about, for we can hardly discuss seri- 
ous topics without danger. Well at any rate, you 
say, we can laugh. That is not so easy after all ; but 



* Plutarch, Cic, 39. Csesar probably had in mind the verdict of 
Aristotle on Theramenes, which in its complete shape has just come 
to light in the newly discovered Constitution of Athens, ch. xxviii 
" Those who weigh their judgments are agreed that he did not, as 
was said against him, wreck all governments, but that rather he 
furthered all so long as they kept within the limits of the law, being 
capable of serving under all, as a good citizen should, but that when 
they crossed these limits he resisted and repudiated them." 

f Ac? Att., xiii., 51. 

%AdFam % , xv., 18, 1. 



366 Death of Tullia. [45 b.c. 

there is no other way of forgetting our anxieties. 
But where, you say, is philosophy gone? Yours to 
the kitchen, and mine to the rhetoric school. I am 
ashamed to be a slave, and so I make believe to be 
busy, that I may shut my ears to the reproaches of 
Plato/* To another friend * he describes a dinner 
with Volumnius Eutrapelus, where Cicero and Atti- 
cus and other grey-beards found that they had been 
invited to meet a lively person, hardly fit company 
for a consular of Rome. " You wonder that we can 
make our slavery so merry. Well, what am I to do ? 
I ask you, the student of philosophy. Shall I wring 
my heart and torment myself? Who will be the 
better for that ? and how long am I to go on with 
it ? ... I never was much attracted by women 
of that class even when I was young, to say nothing 
of my old age : but I do enjoy the dinner table ; 
there I speak whatever comes uppermost, and turn 
all my lamentations into hearty laughter." 

This easy life was rudely cut short by a great and 
unexpected calamity. Cicero's daughter Tullia, died 
suddenly at Rome about the end of March in the year 
45 B.C. Tullia was her father's darling, the only one of 
his family of whose conduct he never complains, his 
consolation in all his troubles, and his tender and 
sympathising companion in all his pursuits. Cicero 
was overwhelmed with grief, and sought refuge in 
tears and seclusion. " In this desolate spot," he 
writes f to Atticus from Astura soon after his be- 
reavement, " I avoid speaking a word to any one. 

♦Paetus, Ad Fam. y ix M 26, 2. 
\Ad Att %> xii., 15. 



45 B.C.] Cicero s Grief. 367 

Early in the morning I hide myself away in a thick 
wood and do not quit it till evening. Next to your- 
self my best friend is solitude." He attempted to 
beguile his grief by a project of erecting a shrine for 
Tullia, and so deifying her memory. His letters are 
full of schemes for the purchase of gardens near 
Rome suitable for the purpose. It does not appear 
that Cicero's wish was ever realised, and the disturb- 
ances after Caesar's death interrupted all his plans. 

Cicero's young wife Publilia had been jealous of 
her stepdaughter, and she was unable to conceal her 
satisfaction when Tullia died. This heartlessness 
deeply offended Cicero. He at once divorced Pub- 
lilia, and though she and her friends made several 
overtures for a reconciliation, he would never see her 
again. 

In this great trouble Cicero found much consola- 
tion in literature. " Those old friends," his books, 
now once again proved true to him. " There is not 
a treatise on consolation under bereavement, that I 
did not read through when I was in your house ; but 
my grief was too strong for the medicine. Nay, 1 
did what I believe no one ever did before ; I wrote 
a treatise on consolation myself. I will send you 
this book if the copyists have written it out. I de- 
clare to you, this has given more relief than any- 
thing. Now I write from morning to night ; not 
that what I write is good for much, but it checks my 
grief to a certain extent." * These words were writ- 
ten soon after his loss. Some two months later 
Cicero can appeal unhesitatingly to his literary 

* Ad Ait*, xii 6 , 14, 3. 



368 Philosophical Writings. [45B.C 

activity, which is producing the Tusculan Disputa- 
tions, as a proof that he is not yielding an unmanly 
subjection to his grief. " Those cheerful souls/' he 
writes, " who find fault with me, cannot read as much 
as I have written in the time. Whether the work is 
good or bad, is nothing to the point ; it could not 
have been attempted by anyone who had abandoned 
himself to despair." * 

Almost all Cicero's philosophical works belong to 
this (45 B.C.) and the following year. His writing 
was hardly interrupted by Caesar's death and ceased 
only with his own recall to the active labours of a 
statesman at the end of the year 44. Not to mention 
several works which are lost, we have from this 
period the Academic Questions, the treatise On the 
Definitions of Good and Evil, the Tusculan Disputa- 
tions, the dialogues On the Nature of the Gods, On 
Divination, On Old Age, and On Friendship, and 
finally the treatise On Duty (De Officiis) addressed 
to his son Marcus. Cicero found the materials for 
most of these works in the writings of the Greek 
philosophers : " I have to supply little but the words," 
he writes, f " and for these I am never at a loss." 
Though Cicero has no pretensions to be considered 
a thinker of original and inventive genius in the 
region of philosophy, it was no small achievement thus 
to mould the Latin tongue to be a vehicle for Greek 
philosophic thought. Cicero wiped away the re- 
proach of "the poverty of our native speech," of 
which Lucretius complains, and in so doing he se- 

* Ad Att., xii., 40, 2. 
f Ad Att., xii., 52, 3. 



45 B. c.] Despair for the State, 369 

cured the tradition of ideas and modes of thought 
which must otherwise have missed their influence on 
the world. There have been ages during which 
Plato and Aristotle have suffered eclipse ; but per- 
haps hardly one in which Cicero's philosophic writ- 
ings have not been cherished by at least a few men 
of letters. They have thus kept alive the memory 
of ancient philosophy, and have humanised the 
thoughts and words of one generation after another. 
If we were required to decide what ancient writings 
have most directly influenced the modern world, the 
award must probably go in favour of Plutarch's Lives 
and of the philosophic works of Cicero.* 

Tullia's death marks a turning-point in Cicero's 
appreciation of Caesar and his work. He is resolved 
that patience shall not be wanting, but he "has lost 
for ever that cheerfulness with which we used to sea- 
son the bitterness of the time." It is characteristic 
of the man, that his private sorrow opens his eyes to 
the fact that the hopes which he has been indulging 
for the commonwealth are all delusions. When once 
the truth is grasped, Caesar's proceedings during the 
last months of his life serve to confirm Cicero's mel- 
ancholy conviction, and to bring him to the state of 
mind in which he is ready to approve the deed of the 
Ides of March. 

"All is lost, my dear Atticus," he writes f in the 
month of his daughter's death, " all is lost ; that is 

* On the absorption of Greek moral doctrine into the ethics of the 

Christian Church, effected mainly through the influence of Cicero on 

St. Ambrose, see Hibbert Lectures, 1888, by Edwin Hatch, ch. vi. 

f Ad Att^ xii., 23, 1. 
24 



370 Ccesars Dictatorship. [45 B.C. 

no new thing ; but now that my one hold on life is 
gone, I am fain to acknowledge it." His reply * to 
the consolations of his friend Lucceius, a month 
later, breathes the same spirit. " In one respect I 
think that I am even more courageous than your- 
self, who exhort me to courage ; for you seem to be 
cherishing some hope that better days may be in 
store. Your illustrations from the chances of com- 
bat and the like, and the arguments you adduce, 
seem intended to forbid me from despairing utterly 
for the commonwealth. I do not wonder then that 
you are braver than I, since you have some hope ; 
but I do wonder that you should still hope on. What 
remains that is not so stricken, that we must needs 
confess it to be doomed and blasted ? Look round 
on all the limbs of the State which you know so 
well; where will you find one that is not crushed 
and crippled ... So I will bear my private 
grief, as you bid me, and the public grief perhaps 
even more patiently than you, my preceptor. For 
you have some hope to comfort you, I am resolved 
to be strong amidst absolute despair/' 

The misery and hopelessness, which was entailed 
on the Romans by Caesar's government, may be well 
illustrated by Cicero's correspondence with his old 
friend Servius Sulpicius Rufus. Servius had taken 
no part against Caesar in the Civil War (see above, 
p. 337), and at its close he was nominated by the 
Dictator to the governorship of Greece. This ap- 
pointment was a kindly and delicate action on 
Caesar's part. He must have known that Servius 

* Ad Fam., v., 13, 3. 



45 B.C.] Letter of Servius Sulpicius. 371 

was at heart a Pompeian, and Greece was full of re- 
publican exiles to whom the presence of a sympa- 
thetic proconsul was a great comfort and protection. 
Nevertheless, Servius, far from- congratulating him- 
self that he has played his cards well, is " deeply 
troubled, and in the midst of the public misery is 
tormented by a grief peculiar to himself." * The 
reproaches of conscience, felt by one who had been 
hardly more than a neutral, may serve to explain the 
bitter wrath of those members of the democratic 
party who had actively aided Caesar in arms, and who 
now found that they had been unconsciously con- 
spiring to destroy the last remnant of popular gov- 
ernment, and to set up an unmitigated despotism. 
This disappointment, sharpened by self-reproach, 
armed against Caesar the daggers of some of his best 
officers, Decimus Brutus, Trebonius, and Galba. 

Servius Sulpicius is best known to modern readers 
as " the Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind," 
part of whose beautiful letter of consolation on the 
death of Tullia is paraphrased by Byron : 

" Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, 
The Roman friend of Rome's least mortal mind, 
The friend of Tully : as my bark did skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
JEgina. lay, Piraeus on the right 
And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined 
Along the prow, and saw all these unite 
In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight. 



The Roman saw these tombs in his own age 
These sepulchres of cities, which excite 



* Ad Fam., iv., 3, 1. 



372 Caesars Dictatorship. [45B.C, 

Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 

The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage." 

The reflection on human nothingness by one who 
contemplates the ruins of by-gone cities and empires 
is a topic for every age. But Servius has special 
considerations to urge, which are happily not of so 
universal application : " Do you grieve for her lot, 
who is taken away from the evil to come ? who has 
seen the great days of the Republic, and has expired 
with its expiration ? Does it not often occur to you, 
as it does to me, that we have fallen on times in 
which those are to be congratulated who can pass 
painlessly from life to death ? Why be so deeply 
stirred by a private grief? Consider how fortune 
has buffeted us already. We have been bereft of 
those things which men should hold not less dear 
than their children — our country, our reputation, our 
dignity, — everything which made life honourable. 
What can one blow more add to our pain ? Schooled 
in such a fate as ours, ought not the mind to become 
callous, and hold whatever may befall as insignifi- 
cant."* 

In sentences such as these we seem to catch the 
note of dull, passive despair, which Tacitus has 
taught us to recognise as the tone appropriate to 
the Romans under the Empire. The inexorable, 
unapproachable despotism already throws its chill 
shadow over the world, and the " petty men," as 
Cassius says, "peep about, to find themselves 
dishonourable graves." 

* Extract from Ad Fam %% iv., 5. 



45 B.C.] Exasperation of the Romans. $7 5 

Every incident of monarchy was galling and de- 
grading to those who had been nurtured in the proud 
atmosphere of aristocratic republicanism. There 
are indications that Caesar himself was not blind to 
the feelings which his domination inspired, though 
he lacked the energy of purpose to correct the faults 
of which such feelings were the natural outcome, 
Cicero was dancing attendance one day in the ante- 
chamber of the Dictator, waiting for his turn of 
audience. u Can I doubt," exclaimed Caesar, " that 
I am cordially hated, when Marcus Cicero has to sit 
there waiting, and cannot see me at his own conven- 
ience ? Well if any one is good-natured it is Cicero, 
but no doubt he must hate me bitterly." * Cicero 
had certainly no personal reason for disliking Caesar, 
and those who have followed his utterances so far, 
have before them abundant evidence that personally 
he revered and admired him. What he hated was 
not the man but the monarch ; yet his hatred of the 
monarch was sufficient to cause him not only to 
accept Caesar's assassination as a necessary measure, 
but to triumph over it as a righteous retribution. 
Even when he doubts whether its practical results 
will not prove worthless, he sets down as clear gain 
" the exultation in the deed, and the exaction of the 
penalty desired by our hatred and indignation."! 
Even "this same easy-tempered man," had felt the 
iron enter into his soul. To men of sterner mould 
the thrust of the dagger seemed the only possible 
answer to the ignominy under which they suffered. 

* Ad Att. y xiv., i, 2. 
f Ad Att, % xiv., 12, I. 



374 Ccesars Dictatorship. [45 b.C 

" It makes a world of difference, what his will is," 
Caesar was wont to say of Marcus Brutus ; " whatever 
he wills, he wills it strongly." * Such wills Caesar 
had set in deadly opposition to himself and his 
policy. 

In the latter part of the year 45 we find Cicero 
engaged, though with little hope of any profitable 
result, on a letter of political advice addressed to 
Caesar. His model was to be a treatise dedicated 
to Alexander by Aristotle. " There is nothing in 
it," he writes,f "which may not become a good 
citizen, but a citizen such as the facts of the 
time admit of ; and all political philosophers bid us 
adapt our course to the circumstances." Balbus and 
Oppius, who always knew Caesar's mind, objected 
to some portions of the letter. " Some improve- 
ments," Cicero writes, % " were suggested on the 
present order of things ; and because they are im- 
provements they are found fault with." He declined 
to alter what he had written, and preferred to with- 
draw the letter altogether. " Let us throw all these 
futilities to the winds," he exclaims, § " and hold to 
the half-freedom of submitting in silence and retire- 
ment." 

Thus ended the last effort to deter the Dictator 
from the line of action which was leading him to his 
death. Caesar paid a visit to Cicero at his villa near 



* Ad Att., xiv., I, 2. 
\ Ad Att. y xii., 51, 2. 
\ Ad Att., xiii., 28, 2. 
§ Ad Att., xiii., 31, 3. 



45 B.C.] The Despotism. 375 

Puteoli in the month of December, 45 ; but the conver- 
sation was all on literary topics, " of serious matters 
not a word " * ; on these " serious matters " Caesar had 
no intention of listening to counsel, and he was daily 
revealing to the eyes of the Romans that he had 
spoken his last word in politics, and that the yoke 
which they abhorred was to be fixed on their necks 
for ever. " There could be no complaint," writes 
Mommsen, " at least on the score that Caesar left 
the public in the dark as to his view of his position , 
as distinctly and formally as possible he came for- 
ward not merely as monarch but as very King of 
Rome." After the Spanish War was over, he ac- 
cepted for the first time, under the title of Dictator 
for life, absolute and unlimited dominion ; and he 
never even pretended that he would voluntarily 
set a term to his power, as Sulla had done. Caesar 
was not only greedy of the substance of power, 
but was caught by the glitter of its trappings. 
Though he knew the hatred which the Romans had 
cherished for centuries to the name of King, he suf- 
fered his partisans to play with the offer of the 
diadem, the symbol of Oriental monarchy. This 
offer which took place in January, 44, (see below p. 
397) really, says Cicero,f cost Caesar his life. Mean- 
while he set up his statue along with those of the 
Seven Kings of Rome, and adopted the golden 
throne and the robes which tradition assigned to 
them. % He thus wilfully trampled on the suscepti- 

* Ad Att., xiii., 52, 2. 
f Phil., xiii., 19, 41. 
\De Div., i,, 52, iiq. 



376 Cczsars Dictatorship. [45 b.c, 

bilities of men, who dwelt proudly on the recollec- 
tion of the long centuries of glory, in which freedom 
and self-government had made them masters of the 
world. He attempted to force on them the show of 
despotism for which the Roman world was not ripe 
for yet three hundred years. The setting up of 
Caesar's statue beside that of Quirinus, the deified 
Romulus, brings to Cicero's lips the sharp retort : 
" I am better pleased to see him the neighbour of 
Quirinus, than as sharing the temple of Safety."* 
The legend ran that Romulus had governed tyran- 
nically, and had been torn in pieces by the Senators. 
In indicating such an omen for the new monarch of 
Rome, Cicero shows that the idea was already (May 
45 B.C.) floating before his mind that the effort to 
reconstruct the Republic might have to be made over 
the dead body of Caesar. 

While on the one hand Caesar accepted the odious 
memory of the office which the free State had re- 
nounced for ever, on the other hand we see in him a 
hankering after the barbaric expressions by which 
Eastern potentates were wont to attempt to realise 
to themselves the plenitude of their power. He 
aspired to a " Divine Right," not in that compara- 
tively innocent form in which the ruler is regarded 
as the special servant and delegate of Heaven, but in 
the slavish sense in which the prostrate Asiatic deifies 
the person of his master. Caesar must have his 
statue borne in procession among the images of the 
gods, he must have temples and a flamen to offer in- 
cense to his divinity and a statue inscribed, "the 

*4dAtU % xii., 45, 3. 



45 B.C.] The Despotism. 377 

invincible god."* These pretensions would have 
seemed impious to the believers in a dogmatic 
theology; but this was hardly the case with the 
Romans ; their objection was not so much religious 
as political. Such conduct in a man was " incivism " ; 
it was to claim submission as to a being of higher 
nature ; it was to arrogate a pre-eminence, injurious 
and insulting to his fellows. 

About the same time when Caesar was parading 
his image among the gods, Aurelius Cotta was em- 
ployed to discover a Sibylline oracle which might 
justify the Dictator in assuming the title of King. 
The hurried sentences of a note scribbled to Atticusf 
give us a glimpse of Cicero's feelings. " How I de- 
lighted in your letter ! but this procession is a bitter 
business. However, it is well to be kept informed 
about everything, even about Cotta. Well done the 
people ! that they would not lend a hand even to 
clap the Victory, because of the bad company she 
was in. Brutus is here ; he wants me to write to 
Caesar. I had promised to do so, but now I tell him 
to look at this procession." 

The Ides of March were now drawing on. Caesar 
had not allowed the old year to expire without a 

* Appian, Bell, Civ., ii., 106 ; Dio Cassius, xliii., 45, 3 ; Suetonius, 
yul. t 76. Mommsen's comments are characteristic of the modern 
Caesarian school. " Since the principle of the monarchy leads by 
logical sequence either from its religious side up to the king-god, or 
from its legal side up to the king-master, we must recognise in this 
procedure that absolute and unshrinking thoroughness of thought and 
action, which, here as elsewhere, vindicates for Caesar a unique station 
in history."— Romische Staats-Recht, vol. ii., p. 755, 

%AdAtL % xiii.,44, i, 



3J& Cczsars Dictatorship. [45 b.c, 

deadly insult to the memory of the chief magistracy 
of republican Rome. Caninius Rebilus was elected 
consul for a few hours of the last day of the year 45. 
It was the public proclamation of the fact that the 
consulship was now only a mockery and a farce. 
The account of the spectacle which Cicero gives to 
his friend Curius in one of the last letters* written 
before Caesar's death, may serve as a fitting close to 
his experiences of the government of the Dictator : 

" I give up pressing you or even inviting you 
to return home. All I wish is that I, too, could take 
to myself wings, and come at some land ' where I 
shall never hear of the name nor the deeds of the 
sons of Pelops.' f I cannot tell you how mean I feel 
for having any part in these things. Verily you seem 
to me to have had a foresight long ago of what was 
coming on us, when you took your flight from these 
parts. Bitter as things are to hear of, they are a 
thousand times worse to see. At any rate you 
have escaped being present in the Campus Martius 
at eight o'clock in the morning when the elections 
for quaestors were being held. The curule chair of 
Fabius, whom they were pleased to call consul, was 
duly set. There comes a messenger to say the man 
is dead, and away goes his chair. Thereupon, Caesar, 
who had taken the auspices for an assembly by 
tribes, held an assembly by centuries instead. At 
twelve o'clock he returned a consul duly elected to 
hold office till the 1st of January, that is to say, for 
the remainder of the day of election. So you are to 

* Ad Fam. % vii., 30. 

f From an unknown Latin tragedian. 



45 B.C.] 



The Despotism. 



379 



know that in the consulship of Caninius no one 
breakfasted. It must be granted that his consulship 
was remarkably free from crime, owing to his mar- 
vellous vigilance, for during his term of office he 
never closed an eye. This seems a joke to you. Yes, 
for you are far away ; if you were here to see it, you 
could not refrain from tears. Am I to write anything 
more of the sort ? for plenty of the sort is happening. 
I could not bear it at all, were it not that I take 
refuge in the haven of philosophy, and that I have 
our dear Atticus as the companion of my studies." 




CHAPTER XIII. 

CICERO AND ANTONY. 




44-43 B.C. 

ITH the assassination of Csesai 
on the Ides of March in the 
year 44 B.C. begins the last 
act in the drama of Cicero's 
life. One year and three 
quarters still remained to him 
before he too met his death, 
and these months, though full 
of cruel anxieties, and bitter 
disappointments, are the most 
glorious in his whole career. For the first time since 
the coalition of Caesar and Pompey, seventeen years 
before, he sees the path of duty clear, he feels the 
power to act and to speak freely in the 
cause of the commonwealth, and for 
the sake of that cause he is willing cheerfully to lay 
down his life. This consciousness puts every 
thought of self aside and gives vigour and dignity 
to all his words and actions. 

After the assassination the Liberators retired to 

380 



44 B.C. 



44- B.C.] The Act of Oblivion. 38 1 

the Capitol, where they were joined later in the day 
by Cicero and by Dolabella, who took 

1 it- 1 • 1 1 1 1 -i March 15. 

up the consulship which had been de- 
creed to him in succession to Caesar. Antony, the 
other consul, seized on Caesar's treasury at the 
temple of Ops, and Caesar's State papers were also 
committed to him by Calpurnia, the widow of the 
Dictator. Lepidus, the Master of the Horse, who 
had under his command a legion encamped on the 
island of the Tiber, transferred his troops to the left 
bank of the river, and occupied the Campus Mar- 
tius. Next day negotiations took 
place between the several parties 
which resulted in a meeting of the Senate in the 
temple of Earth on the 17th, two days after the 
assassination. 

At this meeting Cicero proposed that, as at Athens 
after the tyranny of the Thirty, a general Act of 
Oblivion should be passed. The assas- 
sins of Caesar were relieved from all 
pains and penalties for their deed, but on the other 
hand all the Acts of Caesar were confirmed. This 
confirmation led to much awkwardness and many 
confusions, but* the thing was absolutely neces- 
sary. Lepidus' veteran legion was there in arms, 
and the soldiers could only be kept quiet by a guar- 
anty that the scheme under which Caesar had pro- 
vided lands for them should not be disturbed. A 
public funeral was also granted for Caesar's body. 

This compromise, put forward as a basis of recon- 
ciliation, was really only the beginning of a fresh 

* Ad, Att^ xiv., 14, 2. 



382 The CcBsarian Leaders. [44 B.C. 

complication of intrigues and disturbances. It is 
impossible to trace any consistent policy in the 
actions of the leaders of the Caesarian party. We 
find Antony one day agreeing to a general amnesty, 
and the next day making inflammatory speeches at 
Caesar's funeral ; then with an equally sudden change 
proposing that the office of Dictator should be for- 
ever abolished, as if the very name had been defiled 
by having been made the title of the despotism. 
Immediately after this he is found making a circuit 
among the veterans, urging them to swear to the 
maintenance of Caesar's Acts ; but this does not 
prevent his making overtures to Sextus Pompeius 
later on. These negotiations with Sextus were 
conducted through Lepidus, who after obtaining the 
office of Pontifex Maximus, as a reward of his 
services to Antony, had assumed the command of 
Northern Spain and the southern portion of Transal- 
pine Gaul. His legions thus occupied the passes 
, both of the Pyrenees and of the Maritime Alps, and 
by this commanding position Lepidus exercised an 
important influence on the issue of the coming 
struggle. Pollio, the governor of Southern Spain, 
and Plancus who held Northern Gaul with five 
legions, waited on events along with Lepidus. They 
were eager in their protestations of loyalty to the 
Senate, but turned without scruple in favour of 
Antony the moment his cause appeared the stronger. 
Dolabella showed himself at first vigorous on the 
Republican side. When a riotous mob, largely com- 
posed of slaves, attempted to raise a column and to 
offer sacrifices on the spot where Caesar's body had 





COIN OF C/ESAR. 
{Cohen.) 





COIN OF BRUTUS. 

CAP OF LIBERTY, AND DAGGERS. 

{Cohen.) 





ANTONY AND C/ESAR. 
{Cohen.) 





COIN OF SEXTUS POMPEIUS. 

{Babelon.) 



44 B.C.] Cicero and Antony. 383 

been burned, Dolabella intervened with armed force 
and put many of them to death. Nevertheless we 
find him soon after accepting Antony's money, * 
and early next year he led an army against the 
Liberators in Asia, put to death Trebonius who had 
fallen into his hands, and was himself defeated and 
killed by Cassius. All these old officers of Caesar 
appear to have been merely time-servers and self- 
seekers, and to have had no policy except that which 
suited their own interests for the moment. 

There were, however, more honest Caesarians, who 
sincerely mourned their lost chief, and were unwilling 
that his death should go unavenged. Among these 
were Cicero's friends, Balbus, Oppius, Postumius, 
and Matius, and in the same category must be 
counted the consuls-elect Hirtius and Pansa, who, 
however, were brought later on in the interests of 
the commonwealth to renounce the prospect of ven- 
geance. Men of this type generally followed the 
lead of Octavian, as soon as he was able to assert 
himself. Meanwhile their language was threatening 
and gave much anxiety to Cicero. Cicero visited 
Matius early in April, f and found him maintaining 5 
" that the entanglement is hopeless : if Caesar with 
all his genius could not find a solution, who is to do 
so now ? " " He protested," continues Cicero, " that 
all is ruined, in which he is very likely right : but he 
rejoiced at it, and declared that there will be an 
invasion of Gauls within twenty days. . . . To 
conclude, he said, i the matter could not end here.' 

*A(tAtt.,xiv., 18, I. 
f Ad Att. % xiv., 1. 



384 Ccesars Friends. [44 B.C. 

Our friend Oppius is more modest ; he laments for 
Csesar as much as the other, but says not a word that 
can offend the loyalists." " Can I," writes Matius* 
himself a little later, " can I, who wished the lives of 
all to be spared, fail to be indignant, when that man 
is slain from whom I gained the fulfilment of my 
wish ? . . . What right have they to be angry 
with me, if my desire is that they shall repent what 
they have done ? I wish that Caesar's death should 
be a bitter thing to everyone/' Cicero had good 
reason to observe, f " You see our bald friend has no 
mind for peace ; in other words, no mind for Brutus." 
Of Balbus he writes % much in the same tone. 
" Heavens ! how clear it was that he disliked the 
idea of peace ; and you know the man, how circum- 
spect he is." Hirtius, too, as late as the nth of 
May, appears of the same mind§: "These fellows 
make no secret of their intentions ; my pupil for in- 
stance, who is to dine with me to-day, dearly loves 
him whom Brutus pierced. If you ask what they 
are after, I see clearly enough that they do not wish 
for peace : the burden of their discourse is, that a 
great man has been murdered, that by his fall the 
whole commonwealth has been thrown into confu- 
sion ; that all his Acts will be set aside so soon as 
the pressure of fear is removed from us : that his 
clemency ruined him ; if it had not been for that, 
nothing of the kind could have happened to him." 

* Ad Fam., xi., 28, 3. 
f Ad Att., xiv., 2, 3. 
% Ad Alt., xiv., 21, 2. 
§ Ad Att. t xiv., 22, 1, 



44 B.C.] Ccesars Funeral. 385 

Such were the feelings of Caesar's friends with 
regard to his assassination. It proved in the end 
that these feelings were shared by the veteran sol- 
diers, with whom lay the last word in the contest ; 
but the public opinion of the great body of the 
Romans was on the other side. As regards the 
dwellers in the city itself we have very conflicting 
accounts. Shakespeare's picture of the " first, second, 
and third citizens/' who after applauding Brutus' 
speech are forthwith roused by Mark Antony to 
mutiny for the dead Dictator, is only a dramatic 
exaggeration of what really occurred. The veterans 
mingled with the multitude at Caesar's funeral, and 
the Liberators found it necessary to barricade them- 
selves in their own houses. ** On the other hand, 
the attempt to raise a column and altar to Caesar's 
memory seems to have attracted no general sym- 
pathy, and Dolabella's stern and even cruel suppres- 
sion of the movement was applauded by all classes, f 
At public games, either side could command a sym- 
pathetic audience. Those given by the agents of 
Octavian in honour of his adoptive father were a 
great success, \ but so were those which Brutus pro- 
vided as praetor. § A few months later, Cicero's 
harangues were even more effective with the people 
than with the Senate. 

The public opinion of the Romans of Italy was 
from the first clearly pronounced, and never wavered 

* Ad Ail., xiv., 5, 2. 

f Ad Att., xiv., 16, 2, and Phil.,, i., 12, 30. 
% Suetonius, Jul., 84. 

§ Phil., x., 4, 8, and Ad Alt. y xvi., 2, 3 ; cf„ also xiv., 2, I. 
25 



386 Cicero and Antony. [44 B.C. 

until it was overborne by armed force. " In the 
country-towns/' writes Cicero just a month after the 
assassination, " people rejoice to their hearts con- 
tent. I cannot describe how delighted they are. 
how they throng around me, and beg me to tell them 
the story, how the deed was done." * " Nothing," 
he writes, f some months later, " can be firmer or 
better than the temper shown by the people and by 
the whole of Italy." We find the corporations of 
the country-towns offering men and money and pass- 
ing decrees of ignominy and deprivation against 
anyone who should refuse to enlist. % Even the 
newly enfranchised Transpadanes received Decimus 
Brutus heartily, and enrolled themselves under his 
standard. The first taste of despotism had been 
bitter to the Roman people, and we hear no more 
of that apathy which had been so conspicuous in the 
struggle between Caesar and Pompey (see p. 327). 
" This much I must write," says Cicero to Decimus 
Brutus in the following January, § " that the Senate 
and people of Rome take the deepest interest not 
only in your safety but in your glory. I am much 
struck to see how precious your name is held, and 
how notable is the affection which all the citizens 
have for you. All hope and trust that as once you 
rid the State of the despot, so now you will rid her 
of the despotism. At Rome and throughout all 
Italy we are raising a conscription, if it be right to 

* Ad Att. t xiv., 6, 2 (reading " ea de re"). 
f Ad Fam., xii., 4, 1. 
\ Phil., vii., 8, 23. 
§ Ad Fain., xi., 8. 



44 B.C.] Public Feeling of the Romans. 387 

call that a conscription, where everyone comes for- 
ward of his own accord ; men's minds are all ablaze 
with a craving for liberty and with hatred of the 
slavery we have borne so long." The legions of re- 
cruits thus raised find constant mention during the 
course of the war around Mutina. The consul 
Pansa had four of them under his command,* and 
Decimus Brutus at least as many more. Cicero 
himself placed only too much confidence in them.f 
" For my own part, Senators, if I may speak my 
mind, I think that instead of looking only to the 
veterans, we should rather ask, what will the young 
soldiers, the flower of Italy, the newly levied 
legions who have come forward so readily to de- 
fend the State, what will the whole of Italy think 
of the firmness of your action ? For nothing re- 
mains forever at its best ; one generation succeeds 
another. For many years the legions of Caesar were 
in their prime ; now the same is true of the legions 
of Pansa, of Hirtius, of Octavian, and of Plancus. 
They are superior to the others in numbers, they 
are superior by reason of their time of life, and 
above all superior in the goodness of their cause." 
Cicero's reliance on the new levies proved to be ill- 
placed, but their forwardness is a sure token of the 
depth of republican feeling which had survived 
Caesar's victory. The hypocritical utterances of 
Pollio, show clearly enough what were the thoughts 
of honest and loyal citizens whose language he strives 



* Ad Fam., x., 30, 1. 

f rm f *;., i§, 39> 



388 After the Assassination. t44B.c. 

to imitate. He complains * that though he had no 
choice but to obey Caesar's commands, this has not 
shielded him from the blame of his fellow-citizens. 
"The unpopularity which attached to my conduct, 
most undeserved though it w r as, gave me a lesson 
how delightful liberty is, and how wretched a life 
passed under the dominion of another. Therefore 
if the question is of the revival of the absolute power 
of one man, whosoever that man may be, I profess 
myself his enemy/' 

The conspirators during the first weeks after the 
assassination seem to have been without any intelli- 
gent plan of action. Decimus Brutus writes f at 
the beginning of April as if there were no resource 
for them but exile, and Marcus Brutus and Cassius 
were thankful to accept a commission to loolcafter 
the corn-supply as a pretext for retirement. Tre- 
bonius seems to have gone at his leisure to the 
East. % Cicero himself is perplexed and baffled. 
Arguing from the precedents of Greek politics, the 
free State ought to have resumed its life on the re- 
moval of the despot, but on the contrary he has to 
" grieve over a fate which has never befallen any 
nation before, to have rid ourselves of our master, 
and yet not to have restored the Republic. ,, § 

Antony, whom the chance of the Dictator's dis- 
positions had left as consul, squandered the treasures 



* Ad Pant., x., 31, 3. 
f Ad Fam.i xi., 1. 

% There is a letter (Ad Fam, y xii., 16) of his dated May 24th, from 
A-thens. 

§ Ad Alt., xiv., 4, 1. 4 



44 B.C.] Preparations for War. 389 

of Caesar and used the validity accorded to his Acts 
as a sanction for any forgery which he chose to 
insert in the dead man's notebooks. Shakespeare 
has hit the mark when he makes Antony say : 

" Fortune is merry, 
And in this mood will give us anything." 

Laws, immunities, decrees, kingdoms were all to be 
bought from the new master of the State. " He some- 
times makes one wish/' writes Cicero,* " that we had 
Caesar back again." It seemed at one moment as if 
the inheritance of Caesar's despotism had really fallen 
to this shallow-brained soldier. In presence of this 
danger the Liberators soon recovered their presence 
of mind and set to work with energy to raise forces 
for the inevitable conflict. By the middle of April 
Decimus Brutus had entered his province of Cisal- 
pine Gaul, where he was received by three legions as 
their lawful commander. He made these the nucleus 
of a rapidly collected army,f and was soon in condi- 
tion to stand his ground. Marcus Brutus and 
Cassius were slower to act, but they too exerted 
themselves to provide a base of military operations 
in the provinces. By the end of the year almost all 
the troops quartered in the East had joined their 
standard, and by active enlistment among the 
Romans living in the provinces they organised the 
army which was destined to strike the last blow for 
the commonwealth at the battle of Philippi. Two 
young Romans who were pursuing their studies at 

* Ad Ait. , xiv., 13, 6. 
f Phil., v., 13, 36. 






390 Cicero and Antony. [44 b.c. 

the moment in Athens became officers in Brutus' 
army, the poet Horace and Marcus son of Cicero. 
It was a proud moment for his father when he had 
to announce to the Senate amongst other good news 
from the East, " the legion which was commanded by 
Lucius Piso, one of Antony's lieutenants, has gone 
over to my son Cicero, and placed itself at his dis- 
posal/ ' * 

Though despondent as to the future and bitterly 
disappointed at the result of a deed which " has 
taken away the despot but not the despotism/' 
Cicero is absolutely fixed in his moral acceptance 
of the assassination. Looking back on Caesar's 
career as a whole, he now made no question that he 
was a " tyrant " in the Greek sense of the word, that 
he had destroyed a free State, and that he meant 
his own domination to be permanent. This granted, 
the rest was clear. The Greek philosophers and 
historians, the recognised expounders of morality, 
spoke with no uncertain sound of the despot and 
his fate. The slayer of the " tyrant " was a hero 
and a public benefactor; honour and gratitude were 
his due at the hands of every free man. Not only 
in his public utterances, where we might suspect 
him of a desire to make the best of the actions 
of his political allies, but in his most confidential 
expressions to Atticus, Cicero never wavers in his 
approval of the deed and in his admiration for the 
Liberators. " Their name will be glorious as heroes 
or rather as gods. Though the deed may be barren 
of good results for the rest of us, yet for themselves 

* Phil, x., 6, 13. 



44 B.C.] Approval of Tyrannicide. 391 

there is a mighty consolation in the consciousness 
of a great and splendid action. "* In the darkest 
moments of Antony's domination Cicero looks for- 
ward with calmness to the end of life. Personal 
fears have no longer any place in his mind. " If I 
remain in Italy," he writes, f " I see that I shall run 
some risks, but I cannot help thinking that it may 
lie in my power to do some good for the State." 
When Atticus suggests that in the end he will have 
to submit to whichever side may prove the stronger, 
he sets his friend's counsel quietly aside — " not I 
indeed ; I know a better way than that," % — and 
again, u Brutus seems to think of retiring into exile. 
For my part I look to another haven which lies 
handier to my time of life ; all I wish is that I could 
reach it, leaving Brutus in prosperity and the Re- 
public established." § Happily for Cicero he was to 
have the opportunity of selling his life dearly. He 
might well say with Macbeth, 

" Why should I play the Roman fool 
And die on my own sword ? while I see foes, 
The gashes look better upon them." 

In the month of August Cicero was contemplating 
£ visit to his son at Athens. There seemed no place 
for him in Rome while Antony was consul ; and all 
that he could hope was that a return by the end of 



* Ad Ait., xiv., II, 1. 
f Ad Att., xiv., 13, 4. 
% Ad Att. , xv., 3, 1. 
%AdAtt. t xiv., 19, 1. 



} 



392 Cicero and Antony. [44 b.c. 

the year might bring him to the post of duty at a 
moment when his exertions would be of use. He 
crossed to Sicily and had actually set sail from 
Syracuse, when an adverse wind, to which he declares 
his profound gratitude, compelled him to touch again 
on the Italian coast. This happy accident enabled 
him to receive a letter from Atticus which convinced 
him that the crisis would come sooner than he ex- 
pected and that to retire now would be to forsake 
his post. Brutus, whom he met a few days later, 
confirmed him in his resolve, and he set his face 
steadily towards Rome. 

On the 2d of September Cicero appeared in the 
Senate and delivered the speech preserved to us 
under the title of the First Philippic. The tone of 
this oration is firm but conciliatory. He inveighs 
against the policy of Antony, but still urges peace, 
and holds out offers of compromise. The speech 
was, however, sufficient to rouse the deadly hostility 
of the consul ; he threatened riot or assassination, 
and Cicero found it necessary to retire for a while 
from the city. 

During the next weeks events followed thick and 
fast. Antony had forced through a decree for an 
exchange of provinces, by which he was himself to 
have command in Cisalpine Gaul, and Decimus 
Brutus was to be removed to Macedonia. Meanwhile 
he had ordered that four veteran legions which Caesar \ ) 
had stationed in Macedonia should cross over into 
Italy. On the 6th of October he declared his policy 
in a speech in which he asserted that while he lived 
there should be no place for Caesar's assassins in the 



44 B.C.] Intervention of Octavian. 393 

State.* Three days later he proceeded to meet the 
four legions at Brundisium with the intention of 
bringing them down on Rome. But he had to 
reckon with an unexpected adversary. 

Caius Octavius, destined afterwards to rule the 
world under the name of Augustus, was the grand- 
son of Caesar's sister Julia, and was adopted by the 
Dictator's Will as his son and heir. At the moment 
of his uncle's assassination he was residing at Apol- 
\f Ionia in Epirus. He forthwith assumed the name of 
Caesar Octavianus and came to Italy to claim his in- 
heritance. He arrived at Naples on the 17th of 
April f and- was met by Balbus, Hirtius, and Pansa. 
Next day he had an interview with Cicero at Cumae. 
He professed the greatest devotion, and treated 
Cicero with all possible respect and friendliness.^: 
" I maintain, however," writes Cicero, § " that he 
cannot possibly be a loyal citizen ; he has around 
him so many who threaten death to our friends." 
On arriving at Rome, Octavian found that his in- 
heritance was usurped by Antony, who had no 
inclination to share his wealth and power with a lad 
of eighteen, and who treated his claims with con- 
tempt. The first object of the young Caesar was to 
bring Antony to reason, and to this end he pro- 
ceeded to ally himself with the Republicans. Already 
in the month of June he had almost persuaded 
Cicero of his sincerity — " Octavian has, I perceive, 

V * Ad Fam., xii., 23, 3. 

f Ad Alt., xiv., 10, 3. 

«* \AdAU., xiv., it, 2. 

%Ad Att., xiv., 12, 2. 



394 Cicero and Antony. [44 b.c. 

abundance of talent and abundance of courage. He 
seems to me to be disposed as I should wish towards 
our champions. But it is a matter for grave con- 
sideration how far we can trust him, at his age, with 
his name, with such an inheritance and such in- 
structors/' * 

In the month of October Octavian who had now 
just completed his nineteenth year, took a bold step 
forward. His agents stirred up the legions at Brun- 
disium to resist Antony, and he himself meanwhile 
summoned to his standard the veterans from his 
adoptive father's army, who were settled on their 
lands in Campania. Two of the legions from Mace- 
donia (the 2d and 35th) sided with Antony : he had 
force enough to put to military execution a number 
of disaffected centurions of the Martian legion, and 
the rest sullenly submitted for the moment. But 
as soon as Antony had returned to Rome, the 
Martian legion, which was now on its way westward, 
declared for Octavian, and its example was followed 
by the 4th legion. Octavian took up his position 
with his small but formidable army at Alba, protect- 
ing the city of Rome from any armed attack on the 
part of Antony. 

Thus threatened, Antony changed his plan. On 
the 20th of November he left the city, collected all 
the troops which still remained faithful to him, and 
pressed northward hoping to surprise and crush 
Decimus Brutus. Decimus' army of recruits, 
though probably superior to that of Antony in 
numbers, was not to be trusted to meet the veteran 

* Ad Alt., xv., 12, 2. 




THE YOUNG AUGUSTUS. 

FROM THE BUST IN THE VATICAN. 

(Baumezster.) 



44 B.C.] Intervention of Octavian. 395 

warriors in the open field. He therefore awaited 
the attack behind the walls of the powerful for- 
tress of Mutina, where he was besieged by Antony 
from December till the following April. Octavian 
sent messages to Decimus Brutus, urging him to 
hold out and promising assistance. Then he 
marched slowly northward through Umbria * to 
Cisalpine Gaul, and encamped early in the next year 
(43 B.C.) at Forum Cornelii, where he maintained his 
post of observation until he was reinforced by fresh 
troops under Hirtius and Pansa, the new consuls. 

In all these proceedings the young Caesar had been 
acting in concert with Cicero. " Every day," writes 
Cicero f on the 5th of November, " come letters 
from Octavian urging me to take up the cause, to 
save the commonwealth a second time, above all 
things to go to Rome immediately. . . . The 
country-towns are wonderfully enthusiastic for the 
lad. In his progress towards Samnium he came to 
Cales and stayed at Teanum. The crowds that go 
forth to meet and encourage him are marvellous. 
Could you have believed this possible ? On this ac- 
count I shall be in Rome earlier than I intended. " 
There were still grave reasons for distrust, and these 
Atticus seems to have urged on his friend with 
much force. Cicero contented himself, however, 
with informing Oppius, who pressed him to throw 
himself heart and soul into the cause of Octavian 



* He was at Spoletium in Umbria on January 7th ; compare In- 
scription, Orelli, 2489, with Pliny, Hist, Nat., xi., 37, 190, and see 
Mommsen's note, Corp. Inscr. Zat., vol. i., p. 383. 

\Ad Att. t xvi., 11, 6. 



i 



396 Cicero and Antony. [44 b.c. 

and the veterans, that he could not do so unless he 
were " satisfied that he would not only renounce all 
enmity against the tyrannicides but frankly accept 
their friendship/' * This Oppius assures him that 
Csesar will do. 

A permanent reconciliation was in truth impossible ; 
yet Octavian's action had for the present saved Rome 
from Antony, and now the one thing needful was 
that he should be willing to rescue Decimus Brutus. 
Whatever doubts may have presented themselves, it 
was clearly Cicero's duty to accept the situation, 
and make what use he could of the army, which 
Octavian placed for the moment at his disposal, f 
As soon then as the danger of falling into Antony's 
hands was removed, Cicero again proceeded to 
Rome, where he arrived on the 9th of December. 

He immediately struck the key-note of the oppo- 
sition to Antony by the publication of the Second 
Philippic Oration, which he had been carefully pre- 
paring during the last two months. This great im- 
peachment is thrown into the form of a speech, 
supposed to be delivered in the Senate in answer to 
one which Antony had actually uttered after Cicero's 
retirement in the previous September. In reality 
the Second Philippic is not a spoken oration at all, 
but the most famous and effective of all political 
pamphlets. Cicero pursues Antony with fiery in- 
vective through the whole course of his life, from 
his dissolute boyhood onward. Antony's persistent 

* Ad Att., xvi., 15, 3. 

f These arguments are clearly put by Cicero in a letter to Tre- 
bonius, Ad Fam., x., 28, 3. 



44 B.C.] Second Philippic Oration. 397 

veto as tribune was, he says, the occasion of the 
Civil War ; Antony was the only man who could 
be found base enough to bid for the confiscated 
property of Pompey the Great, and insolent enough 
to occupy his house. u Alas ! alas ! for the fate of 
those walls and that roof-tree. What had that 
house ever witnessed but actions pure and excellent 
and of good report? Its old master, as you, 
Senators, know full well, was alike great in the field 
and admirable at home, worthy of praise for his 
exploits abroad, and no less worthy for his habits in 
private life. It is in that man's house that the 
chambers are turned into stews, and the halls into 
taverns. 5 ' * But the inexpiable sin of Antony was 
that he had attempted to set up a King in Rome by 
the offer of the diadem to Caesar at the Lupercalia. f 
" You set the diadem on his head, and the people 
groaned ; he put it aside, and they shouted applause. 
You then, villain, were the only man to give your 
voice for Kingship, to declare that you wished to 
take for your master the man who by law was your 
fellow-consul, and to make experiment of how much 
the Roman People could tolerate or suffer. Aye, 
and you would entreat his pity ; you flung yourself 
at his feet in supplication. What was your petition ? 
That you might be permitted to be a slave ? Nay, 
you should have begged the boon for yourself 
alone, you who have submitted to all indignities 
from your boyhood, so that slavery comes easy to 
you ; from us and from the Roman People you had 

* Phil., ii., 28, 69. 
f Phil., ii., 34, 85. 



398 Cicero and Antony. [44 B.C. 

no such commission. ... I fear lest I may 
seem to be casting a slight on the glorious action of 
our great champions, but anger moves me, and I 
must speak. I say that it is foul shame that the 
man who set on the crown should be permitted to 
live, when all agree that the man who set it aside 
was righteously put to death. " In reverting at the 
end of his speech to the same note of warning, 
Cicero takes occasion to eulogise by way of contrast 
the great qualities of the Dictator. The passage * 
may well find a place here as Cicero's last word 
respecting Caesar. 

" Is that a life worth living, to be in fear day and 
night of your associates ? Do you suppose that you 
have bound your satellites by any claims stronger 
than those which he had on some of the men who 
slew him, or do you presume to mate yourself with 
him ? In Caesar there was genius, reasoning, 
memory, culture, perseverance, reflection, and energy. 
His achievements in war had been disastrous indeed 
to the commonwealth, but they had been great. 
After pondering for many years how to win the 
throne, at the cost of much toil and much peril he 
had accomplished his design ; he had allured the 
ignorant multitude by his shows, his buildings, his 
largesses ; he had bound his followers to him by 
great rewards, and his adversaries by fair-seeming 
clemency. In a word, he had brought a State, free 
till then, to acquiesce, partly through fear, partly 
through torpor, in the practice of subjection. I 
may liken you to him in your lust for dominion, but 

* Phil % ii., 45, 116. 



44 B.C.] Second Philippic Oration. 399 

in all other respects how unlike you are ! Many are 
the ills which Caesar has stamped on the common- 
wealth, but this good has accrued, that the Roman 
People has learned what reliance it may place on 
each of us, into whose hands it may trust its 
fortunes, against whom it must be on its guard. 
Do you never think on this? Do you not compre- 
hend that for brave men it is sufficient to have 
learned the lesson once for all, how noble an action, 
how acceptable a boon, how famous a record is the 
slaying of a tyrant ? We could not bear him, and 
do you suppose that we are going to endure you. 
Believe me, men will hasten to such deeds in future, 
and there will be no tarrying. Turn and think, I 
entreat you, Mark Antony, at this eleventh hour 
think for the commonwealth. Forget those with 
whom you associate, and remember those from 
whom you are sprung. Be friends again — with me, 
as you please — only be friends with the State. But 
you must look to yourself. My part is simple. I 
defended the Republic when I was young, I will not 
desert her now that I am old ; I despised the dag- 
gers of Catiline, I will not quail before yours. Nay, 
I offer my body willingly, if at the price of my life 
the freedom of Rome may be purchased. Long has 
the indignation of the Roman People been in 
labour ; Heaven grant that at length it may bring 
forth. For myself, twenty years ago I said in this 
very temple that death could never come untimely 
to the consular ; now I may say that it cannot come 
untimely to the old man. Death is a thing that I 
can wish for, now that I have served my time and 



400 Cicero and Antony. [44 b.c, 

done my work. Two things alone I crave, first, 
that dying I may leave the Romans a free people — 
that is the greatest boon which Heaven can grant 
me, — and next that as each has earned his recompense 
from the commonwealth so he may receive." 

Cicero's first business in Rome was to come to an 
understanding with Hirtius and Pansa, who were to 
enter on their consulship on the 1st of January. He 
found them excellently disposed, willing cordially to 
accept the Act of Oblivion, which had been passed 
nine months before, and to labour for the re-estab- 
lishment of the commonwealth. For the moment 
the most pressing need was the conduct of the war 
around Mutina, and the relief of Decimus Brutus. 
Much might be done in Rome itself to further these 
ends. Advantage must be taken of the general 
feeling against Antony to press on the work of arm- 
ing Italy; the Senate must be induced to declare 
its policy unmistakably, to give an utterance to the 
will of the nation, to uphold the action of Octavian, 
to use all the power of its name and authority to in- 
duce the commanders of the other armies to follow 
his example, and to make it clear to all the world 
that war was being waged between Antony and the 
united Roman People. The office of guide and 
leader in this movement was one which Cicero was 
eminently qualified to fill, and he consented without 
hesitation to undertake the task. 

No important business could be formally com- 
pleted in the Senate till the new consuls should 
come into office ; but Cicero was impatient for 
action. The tribunes summoned the Senate on th^ 



44 B.C.] Cicero s Policy. 401 

19th of December, and at this meeting Cicero laid 
before the House a statement * of the policy which 
he was prepared to recommend. He protested that 
there had been already too much delay, and urged 
the Senate to pledge itself as soon as possible to a 
decisive line of conduct. His speech ended with 
a motion, expressing full approval of the action of 
Decimus Brutus, of Octavian, and of the soldiers who 
had supported them, and a resolution to this effect 
was passed by the House. 

Following out this policy to its logical conclu- 
sion, Cicero on the 1st of January proposed that 
Octavian should be invested with the 

u . • » c 1. 43 B.C. 

" imperium of a pro-praetor, neces- 
sary to legalise the command he had assumed over 
his troops. On this occasion he solemnly assured the 
Senate that the young Caesar had sacrificed all his 
private resentments to the good of the common- 
wealth, and that his loyalty and good faith might be 
implicitly trusted. " I venture to pledge my word 
for him to you and to the Roman People. Judge if 
I have good cause, when I dare to do this without 
fear lest you should think me rash in hazarding an 
assertion on a matter of such moment. I promise, 
I undertake, I go surety, Senators, that Caius Caesar 
will always be such a citizen as he shows himself to- 
day, that is to say such a one as we should most 
earnestly desire and hope." f This pledge remained 
unredeemed, but Cicero sealed his words with his 



* The Third Philippic Oration. 

f Phil, v., 18,51. 
26 



402 Cicero and Antony. [44 B.C. 

own blood, and may well plead Prince Henry's great 
exception : 

" If not, the end of life cancels all bonds." 

The part which Cicero called upon the Senate to 
play at this crisis of events may best be stated in his 
own words * : " Antony must be assailed not by 
arms alone, but likewise by the decrees of this 
House. Great is the power and awful the majesty 
of a Senate unanimous in heart and voice. You see 
how the Forum is thronged, how the Roman People 
is all astir with the hope of recovering its liberties ; 
now, after so long a space, it sees us once again 
assembled in our hundreds, and it hopes that it sees 
us free at last to speak and to act. This is the day 
for which I have been keeping myself all the time 
that I screened myself from the accursed weapons of 
Antony, whilst he thundered against me in my ab- 
sence, little knowing for what occasion I was reserv- 
ing myself and husbanding my strength. If I had 
consented to come and answer him then, when he 
would fain have inaugurated his massacres with my 
blood, I should not now have been in case to serve 
the commonwealth ... In Heaven's name then 
I charge you, Senators, grasp this opportunity 
which is put within your reach, and call to mind at 
length that you are the peers of the venerable 
council that keeps watch over the world. Proclaim 
it to the Roman People that your counsel shall be 
forthcoming at this hour in which it declares that 
its manhood shall not be wanting . . . And if, 

* Phil., iii., 13, 32. 



44 B.C.] Third Philippic Oration. 403 

which Heaven forbid, but if the death-agony of the 
commonwealth be indeed upon us, then even as gal- 
lant gladiators sink beneath their wounds not inglori- 
ously, so let us, who are at our post in the forefront of 
the world, and of all its peoples, take thought for this 
that we should die with honour, but never degrade 
ourselves to be slaves . . . With our noble con- 
suls for champions and leaders, with Heaven our 
aid, with ourselves watchful and provident for the 
time to come, with the Roman People at our back, 
verily it shall not be long before we are free, and our 
freedom will be the sweeter for the memory of the 
servitude that is past." 

Thus the great conflict began, and Cicero frankly 
accepted the post of honour and of danger. The 
outlook at the moment is described in a letter* 
to Cornificius, the Governor of Africa, who almost 
alone amongst Caesars officers remained staunch to 
the Republic in its hour of peril. " What is to hap- 
pen," writes Cicero in the month of December, "I 
know not. The single hope remains that the Roman 
People may at last show itself worthy of its ancestors. 
For my own part I will not be wanting to the State, 
and whatever happens, so that it be not by my fault, 
I will bear it with fortitude." A few days later he 
addsf: "As soon as ever opportunity presented, 
I used my old freedom in defence of the Republic. 
I offered my services as leader to the Senate and 
People of Rome, and when once I had taken up the 
cause of liberty, I did not let slip a moment which 

* Ad Fam. t xii., 22, 2. 
f Ad Fam. y xii., 24, 2. 



404 Cicero and Antony. [43 b. c. 

could be used in defence of the common safety and 
the common freedom." 

On the afternoon of December 19th, and again on 
the 4th of January, Cicero addressed himself to the 
Roman People in the Forum.* The debate in the 
Senate on the first days of the new year (43 B.C.) 
had ended with a disappointment. Instead of at 
once proclaiming war against Antony, a majority of 
the Senate resolved first to send envoys, summoning 
him to desist from his attack on Mutina. Cicero 
had protested in vain ; but in announcing the result 
to the People he was obliged to make the best of 
the situation, and to console them by the prospect 
that after this at any rate no one will have any ex- 
cuse for hesitation. " Wherefore, Romans, do you 
await the return of the envoys, and digest the vex- 
ation of these few days' delay. If, when they re- 
turn, they bring peace along with them, then say 
that I have been too rash ; if they bring war, then 
judge that I have seen further than the rest. Am 
I not bound to be watchful over my countrymen ? 
Must I not ponder day and night for your liberty 
and for the safety of the State ? Do I not owe my 
all to you, Romans, whom you have set — me, a man 
sprung from your ranks — over the heads of the 
noblest of the nation? Am I ungrateful? Nay, 
you know that after I had attained my rank I 
laboured in the law-courts just as I had done when 
I was striving for it. Am I a novice in the affairs of 
State? Nay, it is now twenty years that I have 
served, ever battling against disloyal citizens. There- 

* Philippics^ iv. and vi. 



43 B.C.] Sixth Philippic Oration. 405 

fore, Romans, with such wisdom as I have, and with 
efforts perhaps beyond such strength as remains to 
me, I will keep watch and ward for you. And well 
I may. Is there any citizen, especially a citizen hold- 
ing the rank to which you have been pleased to call 
me, who could so forget your favours, be so unmind- 
ful of his country, so indifferent to his honour, that 
his heart should not stir and kindle at the sight of 
your resolution ? I have addressed, when I was your 
consul, many great assemblages ; I have taken part 
in many such ; but never did I behold such a one 
as yours to-day. You have one thought and one 
desire, to ward off the attack of Antony from the 
commonwealth, to quench his fury, to crush his in- 
solence. The same wish is shared by every rank in 
the State ; on this is set the will of the country- 
towns, of the colonies, of all Italy. And so the 
Senate, strong in its own spirit, is made the stronger 
by your support. The time has come, Romans, later, 
far later than beseemed the honour of the Roman 
People ; but now it is so ripe that the hour brooks 
no delay. A fatal spell, if I may so speak, lay on us, 
which we bore as best we could. Now, if we are to 
bear, it will be because we choose to bear. Nay, but 
it is not written that the Roman People shall be in 
slavery, that people whom the will of Heaven has 
set to rule over all nations. The supreme hour has 
come; liberty is at stake. You must conquer, 
Romans, as you surely shall by virtue of this your 
devotion and your unanimity, or else you must ac- 
cept the worst, anything rather than be slaves. 
Other nations may be able to bear the yoke ; the 



406 Cicero and Antony. [43 B.C. 

Roman People has liberty for its peculiar heri- 
tage. " * 

Cicero now stands in the forefront of the battle ; 
his old ideal of " the union of the orders " and the 
" consent of Italy " is at last realised. From the 
middle of December onwards his great speeches 
rapidly succeed one another ; he feels that he is 
giving form and words to the thoughts and aspira- 
tions of all that is loyal and true in Rome, and so 
his eloquence burns free and splendid without reserve 
or misgiving. Under the Roman constitution, the 
duty of leading the debates and guiding the counsels 
of the Senate was not bound up, as it is under our 
own parliamentary system, with the tenure of 
executive office. The magistrate might, without any 
dereliction of duty, confine himself to naming the 
subject which the Senate was to discuss ; it was open 
to the private Senator to make any motion on the 
subject in hand, and this motion, if approved by a 
majority of voices, became a binding instruction to 
the executive. Thus Cicero, though without any 
formal office, took the responsibility of the initi- 
ative and shaped the policy of the Republic. He 
was, in fact, prime minister of Rome. 

He succeeded, though not without difficulty and 
delay, in carrying the Senate with him. A state of 
war was proclaimed, and the citizens assumed their 
war-cloaks as in a time of imminent danger ; Antony's 
Acts were cancelled ; votes of confidence and thanks 
were passed in favour of his adversaries, and each 
promise of support from the provincial governors 

* Phil., vi., 6, 17 seq. 



43 B.C.] Cicero as Prime Minister. 407 

was met by an appropriate acknowledgment, and an 
intimation that if they wished well to the State they 
must stand firm against Antony. When the news 
arrived that Dolabella had murdered Trebonius, he 
was declared a public enemy, and Brutus and Cassius 
were invested with full powers in the East. All this 
was not accomplished without some opposition. 
" We have a brave Senate," Cicero writes,* " but all 
the courage seems to be on the lower benches." The 
consulars were " partly timid and partly ill-disposed. "f 
Cicero's policy was too straightforward and decided 
for them. "They pose % as far-seeing citizens and 
earnest Senators. They say that I have sounded 
the trumpet for war. They are advocates of peace. 
They argue, ' It will not do to rouse Antony's dis- 
pleasure ; he is a dangerous man and a bold one ; 
there are many disloyal persons, and we must be 
cautious of them/ Well, they say the truth here ; 
and, if they wish to count up those persons, they 
may begin with themselves who utter words like 
these." Cicero would fain stimulate them to action 
worthy of their high station. " Heavens ! § what a 
task it is to support with dignity the character of a 
chief of the Roman commonwealth ; those who bear 
it should shrink from offending not only the minds 
but the eyes of their fellow-citizens. When they 
receive the envoy of our enemies at their houses, ad- 
mit him to their chambers, even draw him apart in 

* Ad Fam., xii., 4, 1. 
f Ad Fam., x., 28, 3. 
\PhiL, vii., i, 3. 
Y %Phil, viii. , 10, 29. 



408 Cicero and Antony. [43 b.c. 

* 

conversation, I say that they think too little of their 
dignity and too much of their danger. But what is 
this danger after all ? If the greatest hazard must 
be run, it is but liberty that awaits us if we win and 
death if we lose; the one is to be welcomed, the 
other is that which we can no one of us avoid." 

The position of " princeps, ,, or prime minister, to 
which Cicero justly lays claim, implied in this hour 
of peril not only the duties of a parliamentary leader, 
but other labours which belong rather to the func- 
tions of a diplomatist. While the armies of the Re- 
public under Decimus Brutus, Hirtius, Pansa, and 
Octavian stood face to face with Antony beneath 
the walls of Mutina, the ring was kept by the legions 
of Spain and Gaul under the command of Pollio, 
{J Lepidus, and Plancus. It was obvious that these 
armies might come to have a deciding vote in the 
conflict, and their attitude and that of their generals 
was dubious and alarming. The despatches which 
passed between these commanders and Cicero as the 
virtual head of the government in Rome form the 
best comment on the progress of events. Cicero's 
letters to these almost independent powers are ad- 
mirable in their force and dignity. Not even in the 
Philippics is the tone more sturdy and uncompro- 
mising. " You recommend peace," he writes to 
Plancus, " while your colleague is besieged by a 
gang of rebels. If they want peace, they should lay 
down their arms and beg for it ; if they demand it 
by force of arms, then we must win our way to peace 
through victory, not through negotiation. . . . 
Show yourself worthy ; sever yourself from an ill- 



43 B.C.] Despatches to the Proconsuls. 409 

assorted union with bad citizens ; next offer your- 
self as a guide, chief, and leader to the Senate and 
to all honest men ; lastly believe that peace consists 
not in laying down arms, but in flinging off the fear 
of arms and of slavery. If you will act and think as 
I say, then you shall be not only consul and con- 
sular, but a great consul and a great consular; if 
otherwise, in the splendid titles of your station 
there will be no dignity, but only a pre-eminence in 
ignominy/' * 

To Lepidus he writes f still more sternly : " I am 
glad to hear that you profess yourself desirous of 
promoting peace between citizens. If you connect 
that peace with liberty, you will do good service to 
the State and to your own reputation. But if your 
peace is to restore a traitor to the possession of an 
unbridled tyranny, then let me tell you that all true 
men have made up their minds to accept death 
rather than servitude. You will therefore act more 
wisely, to my judgment, if you decline to meddle 
with projects of accommodation which do not com- 
mend themselves to the Senate or to the People or 
to any loyal man." 

Cicero's efforts seemed at one moment likely to be 
successful. Lepidus and Pollio promised their assist- 
ance ; and though it was clear enough that they were 
sure to range themselves on the strongest side, yet 
even a feigned and temporary adherence was of some 
use in encouraging the efforts of the Romans and in 
giving them time for preparation. Plancus seems 

* Ad Fam.^ x. r 6. 
f Ad Fam. t x., 27. 



4 1 o Cicero and A ntony. [43 Bc# 

really to have intended to cast in his lot with the 
Republic, though his wavering faith failed him in 
the moment of danger. 

Meantime the war before Mutina was approaching 
its crisis. Early in January (43 B.C.) Hirtius had 
joined Octavian in Cisalpine Gaul, and some weeks 
later the two advanced as far as Bononia. The other 
consul, Pansa, remained for a time in Rome, but 
about the end of March he led four newly levied 
legions northwards and joined his colleagues. On 
the 15th of April the first battle was fought at 
Forum Gallorum. Antony was worsted by the 
combined forces of the consuls and Octavian, and 
retired during the night to his camp before Mutina. 
In this encounter Pansa received a wound, from the 
effects of which he died about a fortnight later. 
While Pansa still lived, a second engagement took 
place before Mutina. This time Antony's forces 
were entirely defeated, his best troops were cut to 
pieces, and he was driven to a precipitate retreat. 
Hirtius was killed in the act of storming the enemy's 
camp. 

With the relief of Decimus Brutus and the flight 
of Antony Rome believed that the war was at an 
end. The multitude thronged to Cicero's house, as 
soon as the news of the first battle arrived, and con- 
ducted him in triumph to the Capitol, where he 
returned solemn thanks to the gods for the salvation 
of the Republic. The Fourteenth Philippic Oration, 
the last which Cicero ever published, was delivered 
the same day in the Senate, and records the votes of 
honours to the commanders and rewards to the sol- 



p 



43 B .c.] Defeat of Antony at Mutina. 411 

diers, the tributes to the memory of the fallen, " who 
had conquered in their death," and the great public 
Thanksgiving ordered for the victory. But this fes- 
tival, the last decreed by a free Republic in Rome, 
was destined never to be celebrated. Almost from 
this moment the tide of events began to turn. 

The altered situation was due to the action first of 
the veteran legions and secondly of Octavian. The 
weak point in the policy of the Liberators now be- 
came apparent. A military despotism, resting on a 
standing army, is not to be overthrown by the assas- 
sination of the despot. If the Republicans could 
have possessed their souls in patience until the 
natursj end of Caesar's life, it is possible that his 
army might have acquiesced, as Cromwell's army 
did, in the will of the nation. As it was, the death 
of Caesar consecrated a martyr for the cause of the 
soldiers, and the cry for vengeance gave them an 
excuse for domination. The conspirators hoped 
that they had created the Republic anew ; in truth 
they had only removed one representative of the 
new ruling caste.* The real masters of the State 
had only to decide who should be their delegate in 
the future and to initiate that system of government 
by pronunciamento, which was the curse of the world 
during the next four centuries, just as it is in South 
America at the present day. 

* ' ' It is on opinion only that government is founded ; and the maxim 
extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well 
as to the most free and popular. The Soldan of Egypt, or the Em- 
peror of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, 
against their inclination ; but he must at least have led his mame- 
lukes, ox p? acetorian bands y like men, by their opinion." — Hume. 






412 Cicero and A ntony. [43 b .c. 

The essential mischief, the predominance of the 
professional soldiers in the commonwealth, was not 
touched. It was of no avail that Italy declared her- 
self with enthusiasm for the cause of the Republic 
and sent her sons by tens of thousands to fight for 
freedom. It was now too late to prepare for danger. 
A nation which will be free, must not trust its de- 
fence solely in the hands of a professional soldiery ; 
in spite of the irksomeness and the comparative in- 
efficiency of a short-service system, it must at all risks 
train the mass of the citizens to the use of arms. 
This necessity was even more urgent in the ancient 
than in the modern world, for the use of the rifle 
can be taught far more rapidly than the use of the 
shield, the sword, and the javelin ; a few highly prac- 
tised soldiers could in those days put to the rout 
whole regiments of half-trained men* In all the civil 
wars of Rome there is only one instance in which 
short-service men won a battle from veterans. The 
exception is the engagement in the lines of Dyrra- 
chium in 48 B.C. (see p. 339), and in that case the 
credit rests rather with the commander than with the 
troops. The victory was due to the consummate 
skill with which Pompey took advantage of Caesar's 
rashness in attempting to cover an extent of ground 
too great for his forces. 



* " Dans nos combats d'aujourd'hui un parti oilier n'a guere de 
confiance qu'en la multitude ; mais chaque Romain, plus robuste et 
plus aguerri que son ennemi, comptait toujours sur lui-meme ; il avait 
naturellement du courage, c'est a dire de cette vertu qui est le senti- 
ment de ses propres forces." — Montesquieu, Grandeur des Romains, 
ch. ii. 



43 B.c.l The Veteran Soldiers. 413 

The Italian temperament seems to have been pe- 
culiarly susceptible to the effects of long training 
and peculiarly in need of it. Caesar has given us a 
lively picture of the panic which affected his own 
army, while still young, at the prospect of meeting 
the Germans. Even the officers " could not keep 
their countenance, nor sometimes refrain even from 
tears ; they buried themselves in their tents bemoan- 
ing the common danger along with their friends. 
Throughout the camp men were making their wills. 
. • . Some even reported to Caesar that, if he 
ordered an advance, the soldiers would refuse obedi- 
ence and not dare to go forward with the colours." 
The tables were now turned ; Caesar had fashioned 
these unpromising recruits into invincible warriors, 
and they in turn would face without hesitation 
double their number of raw soldiers. In the ac- 
count of the first battle at Forum Gallorum, written 
to Cicero by an officer who took part in it,* we find 
Antony hastening to take the initiative in attack 
with two of his legions " because he thinks that he 
has only four legions of recruits opposed to him." 
The unexpected intervention of the veteran " Mar- 
tian " legion turns the scale against him. 

The fear of these veteran troops is constantly 
before the eyes of men, and the need for humouring 
them is the favourite argument of the trimmers 
against Cicero's call for vigorous action on the part 
of the Senate. Sextus Pompeius is anxious to inter- 
vene in the war before Mutina, but abstains " for fear 

* Servius Sulpicius Galba, one of the assassins of Caesar, and an 
ancestor of the future emperor. Ad Fam., x., 30. 



414 Cicero and Antony. [43 b.c. 

lest he should offend the minds of the veterans."* 
It is objected to the proposal to recognise Marcus 
Brutus as commander-in-chief in Macedonia, that 
" we do not know how the veterans may take it."f 
Cicero replies : " What, in the name of all that is 
mischievous, do you mean by always putting forward 
the name of the veterans as an answer to every 
righteous proposal? Though I may respect their 
valour, as I do, that is no reason why I should bow 
to their caprices. Here we are striving to burst the 
bonds of servitude, and we are to be stopped because 
some one says that the veterans will not like it ! 
Are not thousands rushing to arms at the call of 
liberty? Is there no one beside the veteran soldiers, 
who is stirred by the indignation of a freeman ? 
. . . Finally (for the words of truth and honour 
will escape from my lips), if the resolutions of this 
House are to be at the beck of the veterans, if all 
our deeds and words are to be fashioned to their 
will, it is better to take refuge in death, which Ro- 
mans have always preferred to servitude." % 

Cicero spoke as a prophet. The hard conditions 
of the time were such that the soldiers could impose 
the alternative of submission or death. The centre 
of power had indeed shifted, and now lay with the 
veterans. The standing army, disciplined by long 
service in foreign and domestic war, was an admirable 
fighting engine, before which hastily levied contin- 
gents must of necessity go down. But it was also 

* Phil. 1 xiii. , 6, 13. 
f Phil. } x. t 7, 15. 
X Phil, x., 9, 18. 



43 B.C.] The Veteran Soldiers. 415 

essentially a body of mercenary troops, animated by 
professional feeling, and without civic loyalty or care 
for the good of the State. The soldiers were attached 
to the memory of the great general under whom they 
had fought and conquered ; they felt strongly that 
his death ought to be revenged, and their wills were 
set against the amnesty which all good citizens 
desired. Plancus writes * that part of Lepidus' 
army is not less disloyal than Antony's own troops, 
and he fears that "the 10th legion, which was 
brought to a proper state of mind by my efforts, 
may break out again into its old frenzy." Cicero has 
to inform Decimus Brutus that it is impossible to 
carry out the arrangement by which he was to take 
command of the Martian and of the 4th legion after 
the death of the consuls. " Those who are familiar 
with those legions say that they could not be induced 
to join you on any terms." f When Plancus comes 
to count up the tale of Decimus Brutus' force, we 
find only one veteran legion, one of two years' stand- 
ing, and eight legions of recruits. " Thus the whole 
army, though strong in numbers, is very weak in 
quality. How much reliance can be placed on the 
recruits in the field we know, alas, too well by 
experience." % 

The interests as well as the sentiments of the veter- j 
ans were against a peaceful solution. Antony had 
shown them that the task of avenging Caesar might 
be made a profitable one. They were not disinclined 

* Ad Fam. y x., II, 2. 
f Ad Fam^ xi., 14, 2. 
\ Ad Fam ti x., 24, 3. 



41 6 Cicero and Antony. [43 b.c. 

to a civil war, and in the meantime were well pleased 
to have all sides bidding for their support. Antony, 
as may be supposed, was not behindhand with prom- 
ises. " I have three strong legions/' writes Pollio* ; 
" one of them, the 28th, was solicited by Antony at 
the beginning of the war with the promise of a dona- 
tion of 500 denarii f to each soldier on the day they 
arrived in camp, and in case of victory the same 
rewards as to his own troops, and these no one sup- 
poses will be other than unlimited. The troops were 
most eager to go, and I kept them in check with 
much difficulty. . . . The other legions were also 
constantly tempted by letters and boundless prom- 
ises." It was in vain for Cicero to propose votes of 
honour in the Senate for the veterans, and to pledge 
the State to reward them ; their instinct told them 
that more was to be hoped from a usurper than from 
the Republic. % 

The temper of the veterans determined the action 
of Octavian. Claiming as he did to be Caesar's heir, 
he was obliged to satisfy the opinion of the army by 
avenging his father's death, and could not sincerely 
desire the restoration of the Republic, in which the 
men who had killed the Dictator would hold a chief 
place. From a Caesarian point of view there was 
reason in the reproaches which Antony addressed to 
his young rival. § " Boy ! you who owe your all to 



* Ad Fam. 9 x., 32, 4. 
f About £20. 

J Phil., xii., 12, 29, " credunt improbis, credunt turbulentis, cre- 
dunt suis." 

§ PhiL, xiii., n seq. 



43 B.C.] The Veterans and Octavian. 417 

his name, is this your object that the condemnation 
of Dolabella shall be ratified ? that this other assas- 
sin here shall be relieved from my blockade ? that 
Cassius and Brutus shall be all-powerful ? ... It 
is hardly likely that those who have declared Dola- 
bella an enemy for his most righteous act, will spare 
me who am heart and soul along with him ! . . . 
Consider within yourself which is the more proper 
course, and which the more useful for our side, to 
avenge the death of Caesar or the death of Trebonius, 
and whether it is more right for us to battle with 
each other that the crushed cause of the Pompeians 
may revive again, or to come to terms and cease to 
make sport for our enemies." Antony says that 
Cicero looks on like a lanista, or trainer, who has set 
a brace of gladiators to fight, sure to profit which- 
ever falls, and this in fact bluntly represents the real 
state of the case. The single chance for Cicero and 
the Senate was that Antony and Octavian should 
weaken each other and hold each other in check, 
until the Republic could possess itself of an effective 
army of its own. 

It was obvious then that the young Caesar's 
quarrel with Antony admitted of accommodation. 
So soon as he had compelled Antony to acknowl- 
edge his power and to treat with him as an equal, 
he had no desire to crush him, and their union 
against the Republic only awaited time and oppor- 
tunity. The position of Octavian was greatly 
strengthened by the death of both the consuls in the 
moment of victory before Mutina ; he retained all 

the veteran troops under his command, and Decimus 
27 



41 8 Antony Reinforced. L43B.C 

Brutus was left, as he says, "with only starveling 
recruits/' Octavian was in no hurry to throw off 
the mask, and affected to be on cordial terms with 
Decimus.* But he would not press the pursuit. 
" If," writes Decimus Brutus, f " Caesar would have 
listened to me and crossed the Apennines, I could 
have hemmed in Antony so completely that he 
would have perished for lack of supplies ; but I 
cannot command Caesar, and Caesar cannot command 
his troops. These are both very ugly facts." 

Antony shows at his best in the hour of danger 
and disaster. He drew off his shattered forces 
westward with skill and courage. He was still 
strong in cavalry, but of infantry he had only one 
legion;]: (the 5 th) in tolerable order; of the others § 
only a remnant survived, and many of the men were 
without arms. But as early as the 5th of May || he 
had reached the coast and approached the Gallic 
frontier. Here he was joined by Ventidius Bassus 
at the head of three veteran legions.^f Ventidius 
had passed the Apennines from Ancona, doubtless 
with the connivance of Octavian, and overtook 
Antony at Vada Sabatia, a little west of Genoa. 
Decimus Brutus, who had marched in pursuit, lay 
on May 5th at Dertona, some fifty miles north-east 
of Antony, and with the Apennines between them. 

* Ad Fam t ^ xi., 13, 1. 
\ Ad Fam.) xi., 10, 4. 
\ Ad Fam. y x., 34, a, I. 

§ The number is uncertain, but Antony's letter (Phil., viii., 8, 25 
claims rewards for six legions. 
|| Ad Fam. y xi., 10, 3. 
TT Ad Fam. y x., 34. a » *• 



43 B.c.l Defection of Lepidus. 4 1 9 

An attempt of Antony to throw troops across the 
range and occupy Pollentia was anticipated by 
Decimus.* Antony now hastened to cross the 
Maritime Alps and take refuge with Lepidus. He 
and his army endured great privations in the pas- 
sage, but by the nth his advanced Ma BC 
guard was at Forum Julii (Frejus), and 
he himself arrived there on the 15th. Lepidus had 
advanced from his headquarters near Avignon, f 
as far as Forum Voconii, about twenty-four miles 
from Antony. From this place he wrote on the 
2 1st a letter to the Senate protesting his fidelity. 
On the 28th he and his army declared for Antony : 
with their united forces they then turned on Plancus, 
who had started from his headquarters by the Isara 
on the 20th to support Lepidus, and was only forty 
miles off when the reconciliation between Antony 
and Lepidus occurred. Laterensis, the lieutenant 
of Lepidus, on the strength of whose assurances 
Plancus had advanced, killed himself in disgust at 
the treason of which he had been the unconscious 
instrument. Plancus made good his retreat again 
behind the Isara. He writes from thence to Cicero 
on the 6th of June, and says that he expects Decimus 
Brutus to join him in three days' time. 

Pollio and his powerful army followed the lead of 
Lepidus, but Plancus held out for some weeks 
longer. His last letter to Cicero is dated July 27th, 
and is full of declarations of affection and loyalty. 

* Ad Fam tt xi., 13. 

f He describes himself (Ad Fam., x., 34) as marching "ab con- 
fiuente Rhodano," i.e., from where the Durance joins the Rhone. 



V 



420 Overthrow of Decimus Brutus. [43 B.C. 

It must always be doubtful whether his attitude at 
this time was merely assumed in order to lure Deci- 
mus Brutus to his destruction, or whether Plancus 
really remained undecided to the last moment. 
Decimus during the latter half of May occupied 
Eporedia, Vercellae, and Pollentia ; he thus com- 
manded the entrance both to the pass through the 
Cottian Alps (Mont Cenis) and to that through the 
Graian Alps (Little St. Bernard) ; by either of these 
he could join hands with Plancus. From a purely 
military point of view, Decimus' best course would 
have been to retreat to the north-east of the Cisalpine 
province, so as to be able to fall back in the last resort 
through Illyricum on the support of his namesake in 
Macedonia. But by such a retreat he would have left 
Plancus unsupported, and would have sadly discour- 
aged the republicans in Rome. He resolved there- 
fore to cross the Alps, and the two armies seem 
actually to have effected a junction before Plancus 
finally deserted the cause. This desertion ended 
the conflict in the West. Decimus' legions of re- 
cruits proved, as he had expected, untrustworthy ; 
they were conscious of their inability to face the 
veterans, and as soon as these were united against 
them they submitted without a blow. Their com- 
mander attempted to escape eastward, but was over- 
taken and put to death by Antony's orders early in 
September. 

The revival of the war which they had believed to 
be ended was a bitter disappointment for the Republi- 
cans of Rome. Cicero remained at his post as leader 
of the House and practical head of the central 



43 8.C.] Last Days of the Republic. 421 

government, and he was still supported by the 
Senate. On the last day of June Lepidus was de- 
clared an enemy by a unanimous vote.* The news 
from the East was uniformly good. Cicero did all 
that man could do to avert the impending ruin. 
He adopted every suggestion in favour of the 
soldiers who still remained loyal, f He procured 
supplies of money for Decimus Brutus, % who was in 
sore need, and summoned Cornificius from Africa 
and Marcus Brutus and Cassius from the East, § to 
bring their forces to bear on the critical point in 
northern Italy. The last letter of Cicero which is 
preserved to us is one addressed to Cassius very 
early in July, and only one later than this (that of 
Plancus on July 27th) remains from a correspondent 
of Cicero. Thus the light of contemporary evi- 
dence which we have enjoyed so long, fails us, and 
for the remaining months we have nothing to guide 
us but the untrustworthy accounts of later authors. 
We know, however, that Cornificius, Marcus Brutus, 
and Cassius never arrived, and the fate of Italy was 
left to be determined by the armies of the West. 
. Meanwhile the policy of Octavian was being 
rapidly revealed. As early as the 17th of June, 
Cicero had written to Decimus fl " Of Marcus Brutus 
we have no certain news ; I never cease urging him 
in private letters to come, as you have suggested, and 

* Ad Fam. t xii., 10, I. 

\ Ad Fam.i xi., 21, 5. 

\ Ad Fam. t xi., 24, 2. 

§ Ad Fam. , xi., 14 and 25 ; xii., 9. 

\ Ad Fam, , xi., 25 s 2. 



422 Octavian Siezes Rome. [43 B.C. 

bear his part in the war. Would that he were here 
already ! we should then have less to fear on account 
of the mischief at home, which is no light matter. ,, 
This " mischief at home " is the claim which Octavian 
was already making to be appointed consul for the 
remaining months of the year. 

Plutarch asserts * that Octavian proposed to Cicero 
that he should join him in the movement, and that 
the two should be consuls together on the under- 
standing that he would defer in all things to Cicero's 
advice. Plutarch even gives us to understand that 
Cicero was caught by the bait, and favoured the 
young Caesar's candidature. All this is very im- 
probable. What is certain is that Octavian's request 
was refused by the Senate. The leader of a deputa- 
tion of centurions, who had been sent to press his 
claim, thereupon struck his hand upon his sword-hilt 
and said, " If you will not give it, this shall give it." 
His words proved true, Octavian left 
Decimus Brutus to shift for himself 
and marched with his army upon Rome. 

The city was without defence except for a few 
soldiers who had been sent from Africa, and these 
went over to Octavian. He was elected consul on 
the 19th of August, and at once seized on the Treas- 
ury, the contents of which he divided among his 
soldiers. He likewise established a court for the 
trial of his father's assassins, who were all condemned 
in their absence. He then set forth again with his 
army to meet Lepidus and Antony. There can be 
little doubt that he had long been in secret com- 

* Plutarch, Cic. , 45 and 46. 



♦3 B.C.] The Proscription. 423 

munication with them. Plancus had written to Cicero 
in July * : " That Antony is alive to-day, that Lepi- 
dus has joined him, that they have formidable armies, 
that they are full of hope and daring — you may set 
all this down to Caesar." It seems probable that 
Lepidus had not received Antony without first com- 
ing to an understanding with him as to a reconcilia- 
tion with Octavian. Toward the end of October 
the three chiefs met in an island of the river near 
Bononia, and the bargain was soon struck. It was 
agreed to have a Proscription even more bloody than 
that of Sulla, and Cicero was to be the first victim. 
Plutarch tells us that Octavian contended for two 
days for the life of Cicero. On the third day each 
of the three surrendered his own friends to the ani- 
mosity of his colleagues. Shakespeare has made the 
scene live before us : 

Ant. These many then shall die, their names are pricked ; 

Your brother too must die ; consent you, Lepidus ? 

Lep. I do consent 

Oct. Prick him down, Antony. 

Lep. Upon condition Publius shall not live, 

Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony. 
Ant. He shall not live ; look with a spot I damn him. 

We hear nothing of Cicero during Octavian's pres- 
ence in Rome. Now that military force had over- 
powered the commonwealth, the statesman must 
have felt that he had received his discharge. Plutarch 
says that he was in his villa at Tusculum when he 
received tidings of his proscription. He made a 
faint attempt to escape by sea, but landed again and 

*AdFam., x., 24, 6. 



424 Death of Cicero. [43 B.C. 

returned to another villa at Caieta. " Let me die," 
Livy reports that he said, " in the country which I 
have so often saved." Next day on the urgency of 
his attendants he allowed himself once more to be 
borne in a litter towards the sea ; but the assassins, 
sent by Antony, overtook him on the way. His 
faithful slaves would fain have fought for him to the 
last, but he forbade all resistance and commanded 
them to set the litter on the ground. Sitting there 
with his chin resting on his left hand, an attitude, 
says Plutarch, which was habitual to him, he quietly 
awaited the stroke. His head and the hand which 
had penned the Second Philippic were hung on the 
Rostra in the Roman Forum. 

A year and a half before the end, in counting up 
the chances to his friend Atticus, Cicero had said * : 
" Must I then take refuge in a camp ? It were bet- 
ter to die a thousand times. I have lived long 
enough." He was saved at least from another Civil 
War in which he could only have been a helpless 
spectator. Cicero's work was indeed over, and the 
tragedy of his death was the natural outcome of his 
splendid failure. He had staked all on one cast. 
The policy of the State during the brief months 
while he was at the helm had been vigorous, straight- 
forward, and unhesitating. He had protested against 
all half-measures and scorned all ambiguous words. 
He accepted the internecine conflict between the 
Republic of the Liberators and the revived Caesarism 
of Antony. There was no door of escape, no place 
left in the State for him and Antony together. 

*AdAtt., xiv., 22, 2. 



Cicero y Ccesar, and Cato. 425 

What manner of man Cicero was, I have at- 
tempted to show from his own mouth. Happily the 
materials for a judgment, which I have been able to 
present to my readers, are copious ; else it would be 
impossible to appreciate the lights and shadows of a 
career so varied, or to estimate at its true value a 
temperament so sensitive, a character so many-sided, 
a will so much determined by human sympathies 
and human weakness. We may contrast Cicero in 
this respect with his great contemporaries, Cato and 
Caesar. Cato knew no guide of action except his 
own stern conception of duty. He was unalterably 
faithful to the Republic, and was ready to make any 
sacrifice for it, except the sacrifice of that inoppor- 
tune rigidity which prevented his ideal being realised 
in practice. Caesar pursued no ideals but only prac- 
tical objects. Whatever means, good or bad, he 
found ready to his hand from time to time, he used 
them with consummate skill, in the first place to 
further his own ambition to be absolute master, and 
in the next place to suppress certain crying evils and 
to realise certain definite improvements in adminis- 
tration. He secured Italy from the most pressing 
danger on her frontier, and he elicited a strong, 
humane, and orderly government from the confu- 
sions of the Civil War. For the sake of these 
objects, without scruple or remorse, he renounced 
as unattainable all the nobler fruits of statesmanship, 
and inexorably crushed out all the possibilities of a 
worthier future for his nation and for the world. 
Cato and Caesar are each of them thorough, positive, 
one-sided ; they act, rightly or wrongly, without 



426 Cicero. 

hesitation and without misgiving ; their intentions 
and their motives are sufficiently obvious from their 
actions. 

But the character of Cicero eludes any such pre- 
cise definition. He had personal ambitions, though 
they were not unlimited like those of Caesar. He 
was no less loyal to the Republic than was Cato, 
loyal with all the passionate attachment of an en- 
thusiastic nature to the great ideals of liberty and 
patriotism. But he aspired to be a practical states- 
man, to adapt his principles to the necessities of the 
time, and to modify his action so as to secure the 
greatest possible amount of good under the given 
circumstances. There were times in Cicero's life, 
when the requirements of a sage and patriotic op- 
portunism and those of fidelity to principle seemed 
irreconcilable. At such times the infinite perplex- 
ities of the political situation bewildered him ; and 
who might not have shared his bewilderment ? He 
had not the power of shutting his eyes to all con- 
siderations but one ; on the contrary, his vivid 
imagination presented every possible aspect of a 
problem to his mind, and he was always trying to 
view a question from a dozen sides at once. This 
habit led sometimes to confusion or inconsistency 
of statement, sometimes, again, to hesitancy in 
action. 

Cicero made many mistakes as a politician. His 
forecast is often wrong ; he is often taken by sur- 
prise ; sometimes by the over-refining of his own 
subtle intellect, sometimes by applying the casuistry 
of his Greek book-learning too readily to the prac- 



Cicero. 42 7 

tical conduct of affairs, he allows himself to be led 
astray, where a man of less discursive mind might 
have shaped his course better. But we must never 
forget that during the greater part of his political 
life he had no choice before him but a choice of 
evils. The critics who have blamed him most bit- 
terly would find it hard to define how, believing as 
he believed, Cicero ought to have acted. Cicero 
accepted it as the first axiom of politics, that " some 
sort of Free State " is the necessary condition of a 
noble and honourable existence ; and that it is the 
last calamity for a people permanently to renounce 
this ideal and to substitute for it the slave's ideal of 
a good master. Englishmen and Americans, worthy 
of their birthright, are not likely to disagree with 
Cicero's judgment. If this be indeed the cardinal 
doctrine of the political faith, then Cicero was sound 
in the faith. At any rate this was the creed in which 
he lived, and to maintain this he laid down his life. 
For such a man to accept as sufficient the solution 
which Caesar attempted to force on the world, would 
have been treason against the best light of his soul 
and conscience. But it was no less true, that to 
accept in its fulness the doctrine and policy of Cato 
was to court defeat and to take refuge in mere 
counsels of despair. Can we wonder, and shall we 
withhold our sympathy, if an honest man in so in- 
extricable a situation was the prey of doubts and 
scruples ? if he halted between two opinions and was 
sometimes at a loss to discover where the path of 
honour and duty lay ? Cicero sought that path 
diligently, and when at last it was made clear to him, 



428 Cicero. 

he pursued it, in spite of danger and suffering, to its 
goal on the beach of Caieta. 

The weaknesses and inconsistencies of Cicero lie 
on the surface of his character, and they are pitilessly 
displayed before us by the preservation of his most 
secret letters. In his case the veil is withdrawn 
which for most of us shrouds from the eyes of the 
world the multiplicities of our motives, the perplex- 
ities of our judgment, the delusions of our antici- 
pations, and the inconsecutiveness of our action. 
His memory has thus been subjected to a test of 
unprecedented sharpness. Nevertheless the faithful 
friends who resolved to present to the world his con- 
fidential utterances, unspoiled by editorial garbling, 
have not only earned our gratitude by the gift of a 
unique historical monument, but have judged most 
nobly and most truly what was due to the reputa- 
tion of Cicero. As it was in his life-time, so it has 
been with his memory : those who have known him 
most intimately have commonly loved him best. 
The reader must judge whether he rightly claims a 
place as a " hero of his nation " ; at least he was the 
exponent of its best thoughts and noblest aspirations, 
its faithful servant in life and its constant martyr in 
death. 

The calm retrospective judgment, perhaps not 
untinged with remorse, of Caesar Augustus sums up 
fairly and honestly the story of Cicero's life. " It 
happened many years after," writes Plutarch,* " that 
Augustus once found one of his grandsons with a 
work of Cicero's in his hands. The boy was fright- 

* Plutarch, Cic, 49. 



Cicero. 



429 



ened and hid the book under his gown ; but Caesar 
took it from him, and standing there motionless he 
read through a great part of the book ; then he gave 
it back to the boy, and said : i This was a great 
orator, my child ; a great orator, and a man whc 
loved his country well/ " 





THE CAMPAIGNaboutMUTINA 




INDEX. 



Actium, battle of, 40 

^Elius Lamia, 230 

yElius and Fufius, the Law of, 

213 
Emilia gens. See Lepidus, 

Paullus, Scaurus 
Afranius, L., partisan of Pom- 

pey, 175 ; made Consul, 181 ; 

lieutenant of Pompey in Spain, 

326 
Agrippa, M. Vipsanius, 75 
Agrippina, the mother of Nero, 

325 

Alba, 394 

Alexander the Great, 306 

Allia, the battle of the, 208 

Allobroges, the, 132 ff. % 135, 
225 

Amanus, Mt., in Cilicia, 306 

Ambrose, St., influence of 
Cicero's writings upon, 369, 
note 

Ameria, 15 

Ancona, 323, 418 

Antioch, 309 

Antonius, M., the orator, 11, 13 ; 
an interlocutor in the De 
Oratore^ 291 

Antonius, [M. Antonius Creticus], 
elder son of the orator ; plun- 
ders the provinces, 45 ; fails to 
put down the pirates, 50 

Antonius, C, younger son of the 
orator; elected Consul, 99 ; 



detached by Cicero from the 
Catilinarian conspiracy, 99, 
113 ; sent against Catiline and 
Manilius, 122, 129, 150 ; de- 
fended by Cicero, 216, 225 

Antonius, M., the Triumvir, 
commands in Italy under 
Caesar, 339, 341, 342; his 
actions after Caesar's assas- 
sination, 381, 388, 389 ; de- 
clares his policy, 392 ; leaves 
Rome and marches against D. 
Brutus, 394, 404 ; blockades 
Mutina, 408 ; defeated at Forum 
Gallorum and before Mutina, 
410, 413 ; endeavours to win 
over the veterans by bribes, 
416 ; unites with Lepidus, 418, 
419 ; joined by Pollio and Plan- 
cus, 419 ; forms with Octavian 
and Lepidus the Second Trium- 
virate, 422, 423 ; includes 
Verres in the Proscription, 57 ; 
spares Atticus, 74 ; the news 
of his defeat and death an- 
nounced by Marcus Cicero, 
the younger, as Consul, 80 

Appian, his account of the debate 
in the Senate on the Catili- 
narians, 140, 141 

Appian Way, the, 286 

Apollonia, in Epirus, 393 

Archias, A. Licinius, the poet, 
10 ; defended by Cicero, 190 

Ariminum, 323 

Ariovistus, 206, 235 



431 



432 



Index. 



Aristotle, opinion of, on Thera- 
menes, 365, note 

Armenia, 46, 240 

Army, the, rise of, to power, 40 
ff. ; master of the situation 
after the assassination of 
Caesar, 41 1-4 16 

Arpinum, birthplace of Cicero, 
3. 8, 9, 10 

Arretium, 182, 323 

Asconius, Pedianus Q., the com- 
mentator on Cicero's speeches, 
122, note* ; 288 

Asia, 2i, 86, 101, 104, 116, 342, 
343 ; settlement of, proposed 
by Pompey, 180, 205, 209 ; 
arrangements for collection of 
taxes in, made by Caesar, 346 

Astura, 366 

Atina, 7 

Attica, Caecilia, daughter of 
Atticus, married to Agrippa,75 

Atticus, T. Pomponius, the 
friend of Cicero, 67 ff., 138, 
197 ; long resident at Athens, 
68 ; remains neutral during 
the Civil Wars, ib. ; his house- 
hold, 72 ; acts as Cicero's pub- 
lisher, 73 ; his life spared by 
Antony, 74 ; defects of his 
character, 75-77 ; his friend- 
ship with Sulla, 76 ; his differ- 
ence with his brother-in-law, 
Q. Cicero, 197 ; marries Pilia, 
291 

Augury, Roman, iwff. 

Augustus, the Emperor, 294, 325, 
348, 349, 351 ; said to have 
conceived the idea of a repre- 
sentative system, 167, note ; 
Plutarch's story of his finding 
his grandson with a work of 
Cicero, 428. See Octavian 

Autronius, partisan of Catiline, 
132, 190, 237 

B 

Bacchanalian conspirators, ex- 
ecution of the, 155, note 



Balbus, Ampius, 356 

Balbus, L. Cornelius, friend and 
agent of Caesar, 204, 282, 331, 
336, 357, 361, 364, 374, 383, 
384, 393 

Bibulus, Marcus Calpurniusr, 
308 ; elected Consul with 
Caesar, 202 ; vetoes the Agra- 
rian Law proposed by Caesar, 
211, 233; continues his opposi- 
tion, 214, 220 (cp. p. 242); 
proposes the appointment of 
Pompey as sole Consul, 287 ; 
Governor of Syria, 305 

Boissier, quoted, 74, 319, note 

" Bona Dea," rites of the, 138 ; 
her mysteries intruded upon by 
Clodius, 172 

Bononia, 410, 423 

Books, publication of, at Rome, 

73, 74 

Bovillae, 286 

Bribery, in the elections at Rome, 
276, 286 

Brundisium, 171, 237, 244, 314, 
324, 325, 330, 334, 335, 337, 
34i, 393 

Brutus, Decimus Junius, tyran- 
nicide, 371, 386, 387, 388, 
389, 392, 394, 401, 415, 419, 
421, 422 ; besieged by Antony 
in Mutina, 395, 396, 400, 408 ; 
relieved by the Consuls and 
Octavian, 410 ; defeated and 
killed, 420 

Brutus, M. Junius, tyrannicide, 
302, 385, 388, 389, 392, 407, 
414, 417, 421 ; author of a 
Life of Cato, 139, 364 ; his ex- 
tortions in Cyprus, 303 ; his de- 
termination of character, 374 

Brutus, the, of Cicero, 363 {cp. 

pp. II, 12, 14, 20-22) 

Byron, quoted, 371 



Caecilia gens. See Metellus. 

Caecina, Aulus, 356 

Caelius, [Marcus Caelius Rufus], 



Index. 



433 



300, 316, 317, 342 ; his charac- 
ter and fate, 318, 319, 329 
Caesar, C.Julius, claimed descent 
from ^Eneas, 39 ; joins the 
democratic party, ib. ; his 
hatred of Cato, 47, 48 ; /Edile 
in C5 B s c, 89 ; said to have 
ben implicated in Catiline's 
first conspiracy, 90 ; his object 
in supporting the law proposed 
by Rullus, 103 ; elected Pon- 
tifex Maximus, 107 ; brings 
Rr.birius to trial, ib. ; warns 
Cicero of the Catilinarian 
conspiracy, 120 ; votes with 
the rest of the Senate on the 
arrest of the conspirators, 
136 ; his proposal about the 
Calllinarians, 139^., 144, 156 
{cp, p. 231) ; supports Metellus 
Nepos against Cicero, 163 ; 
returns to Rome from Spain, 
188, 201 ; refused a triumph 
by the Senate, 202; elected 
Consul, ib, ; organises the 
Triumvirate, ib. ff ; his over- 
tures to Cicero, 203-205, 223 
ff. ; measures introduced by, 
during his Consulate, 208 ff. ; 
meets with opposition in the 
Senate, 210 ff. ; receives the 
governorship of Gaul, 214, 22 1 , 
229 ; becomes the master of the 
Senate, 221 ; leaves for Gaul, 
235 ; his increasing power, 
249 , meets Crassus and Pom- 
pey in conference at Luca, 
263 ; endeavours to win over 
Cicero, 280, 281 ; quarrels 
with the Senate, 314 ; pre- 
pares for war with Pompey, 
317 ; crosses the Rubicon, 
170, 322, 330; compels Pom- 
pey to evacuate Italy, 325, 
326 ; the campaign in Spain, 
326 ; enacts a law to regulate 
payment of debts, 329 ; nego- 
tiates with Pompey, 331 ; fol- 
lows a policy of clemency, 336, 
35 5> 357 J tries to conciliate 



Cicero, 337 ; defeated at Dyr- 
rachium, 325, 339, 412 ; con- 
quers at Pharsalia, 340 ; goes 
to Egypt, 342 ff. ; reconciled 
to Cicero, 344 ; laws enacted 
by him during his Dictator- 
ship, 345-347 ; his choice of 
policy in establishing a despot- 
ism, 348^., 425, 427; treats 
with contempt the forms of the 
constitution, 352, 378 ; writes 
the anti-Cato, 364 ; the feel- 
ings which led to his assassina- 
tion, 373 ; visits Cicero at 
Puteoli, 374, 375 ; shows his 
determination to make him- 
self King, 375 ; claims to 
be regarded as a god, 376 ; his 
assassination, 380 ; his funeral, 
382, 385 ; adopts Octavian in 
his will as his son and heir, 
393 : — Cicero's description of 
him (in the Second Philippic), 
398 ; his character, 425 ; con- 
trast between him and Catiline, 
1 1 7-1 1 9 : — his powers of liter- 
ary judgment, 363, 364 

Caesar, [C. Julius Caesar Strabo 
Vopiscus], 13 

Caesar, Lucius Julius, cousin of 
the Dictator, 330 

Caieta, 339, 424, 428 

Calendar, confusion of the Ro- 
man, 306, note%, 335, note\, 
339, 345, note * ; corrected by 
Caesar, 346 

Calenus. See Fufius. 

Calpurnia, daughter of Piso, wife 
of Caesar, 222, 381 

Calpurnii. See Bibulus, Piso 

Campanus Ager, 100, 106, 182, 
notef, 219, 260,261, 262, 265, 
266, 394 

Campus Martius, 245, 281, 381 

Caninius Rebilus, the Consul for 
a day, 353, 378, 379 

Canopus, the Decree of, 346, note* 

Canusium, 324 

Canvassing, at Roman elections, 
97 



434 



Index. 



Cappadocia, 86, 305 

Capua, 100, 106, 327 

Carbo, Cn. Papirius, 12 

Carlyle, quoted, 193 

Carthage, Roman colony at, 346 

Cassius, a partisan of Catiline, 
132, 137 

Cassius [C. Cassius Longinus], 
tyrannicide, 352, 361, 365, 
388, 389, 407, 417, 421 ; de- 
feats the Parthians, 305, 308 

Castor, temple of, 233 

Catilina, L. Sergius, first con- 
spiracy of, 90 ; stands for the 
Consulship, 99 ; his early 
career, in ; his character, 112 ; 
his projects, 114^. ; attacked 
by Cicero in the Senate, 125 ; 
leaves Rome to join his ad- 
herents in Etruria, 127 ; falls 
in battle at Pistoria, 150 

Cato, C, 252, note*, 276 

Cato, M. Porcius, the Censor, 7 

Cato, M. Porcius, great-grand- 
son of the preceding ; anec- 
dote of his childhood, 47 ; 
his character and policy, 47- 
49, 179, 184, 425, 427 ; prose- 
cutes Murenafor bribery, 130- 
132 ; his speech in the debate 
on the Catilinarians, 147, 149, 
154 ; elected tribune, 160 ; 
refuses Pompey's overtures, 
!75 J opposes the petition of 
the tax-farmers, 187, 189 ; 
prevents Caesar from being 
granted a triumph, 202 ; 
opposes the measures of Caesar, 
210 ; probably wished to meet 
Clodius with force, 234 ; sent 
to Cyprus, 236 ; presides at 
the trial of Gabinius, 279 ; 
assents to the appointment of 
Pompey as sole consul, 287 ; 
opposes the decree for a 
thanksgiving in honour of 
Cicero's administration of 
Cilicia, 307, 308 ; anecdote 
concerning, in the Mithridatic 
War, 309 ; retires to Africa 



after Pharsalia, 341 ; commits 
suicide at Utica, 364 ; Cicero's 
panegyric on, and Caesar's 
anti-Cato, ib. 

Catullus, quoted, 1 ; his love for 
Lesbia, 318, 319 

Catulus, Q. Lutatius, the elder, 
(Consul in 102 B.C.), 13 

Catulus, Q. Lutatius, son of the 
preceding, 46, 61, 90, 107, 
113, 178, 184 

Ceres, image of, stolen by Verres, 
55 ; temple of, at Rome, 242 

Cervantes, quoted, 350 

Cethegus, C. Cornelius, partisan 
of Catiline, 132, 134, 136, 137, 
226 

Chrysogonus, L. Cornelius, 
freedman of Sulla, 309 ; pro- 
cures the confiscation of Sextus 
Roscius' property, 15 ; ac- 
cuses the younger Roscius of 
parricide, ib. ff. 

Cicero, Lucius, cousin of the 
orator, 77 

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, his birth 
and parentage, 3 ff. ; the 
speech for Plancius, 7, 278 ; his 
love for his native city, 8, 9, 
10 ; his early life at Rome, 
n ; his teachers, 12, 21 ; his 
intimacy with the two Scae- 
volas, 13 (cp. p. 291); begins 
to speak in the law-courts, 14 ; 
his defence of Roscius, 15 ff.; 
delicate in health, 20, 341, 
362 ; spends two years in 
Greece and Asia, 21 ; quaestor 
in Western Sicily, 22, 193 ; 
his rise into prominence, 37 ; 
the rival of Hortensius, 38 ; 
supports Pompey's policy, 53 
ff. ; prosecutes Verres, 55 ff. ; 
defends Cornelius, 63, 64 ; his 
friendship with Atticus, 67 ff.; 
x 97 ff' * h* s relations with his 
brother Quintus, 79, 197 ; elect- 
ed curule aedile (69 B.C.) and 
praetor (66 B.C.), 81 ; supports 
the Manilian Law, 87 ; opposes 



Index. 



435 



the plans of Crassus in regard 
to Egypt, go, 113 ; seeks elec- 
tion as Consul, gi ; his speech 
for Murena, 94~g8 ; elected 
Consul, gg ; the speeches 
against Rullus, ib.ff./ acts of 
the first part of his consulship, 
108 ; obtains the ultimum 
Senatus Consultum against 
Catiline's conspiracy, 120-122 ; 
attacks Catiline in the Senate, 
125 ; the Second Catilinarian 
Oration, 127; arrests the Catili- 
narians in Rome, 134 ; thanked 
by the Senate, 136 ; the Third 
Catilinarian Oration y ib. ff. ; 
the Fourth Catilinarian Ora- 
tion, 143 ff. ; carries out the 
sentence on the conspira- 
tors, I4g ; was he justified in 
their execution ? 151 ff. ; the 
last day of his Consulship, 161 ; 
his ideal party (** the good 
cause"), 165, 185, 204, 205, 
273, 321, 406 ; reasons for its 
failure, i66ff. y 187 ; gains the 
goodwill of Pompey, ij&ff., 
188 ; speech for P. Sulla, igo ; 
defence of Archias, ib. (cp. p. 
10) ; his writings on the history 
of his Consulship, igi ; buys a 
house on the Palatine, ig6, 
235, 246 ; refuses the overtures 
of Caesar (60 B.C.), 203 ff. ; 
defends C. Antonius, 216 ; 
retires into the country, 217 ; 
declines the offers of Caesar, 
223 ff. (cp. p. 271) ; the speech 
for Flaccus, 225 ; attacked by 
Clodius, 230 ; driven into 
exile, 234 ; goes to Thes- 
salonica, 237 ; leaves for 
Epirus, 23g ; recalled to 
Rome, 244 ; his triumphal 
return, 246 ; moves that Pom- 
pey be invested with Procon- 
sular power for five years, 
247 ; set upon by the armed 
bands of Clodius, 253, 255 ; 
defends Sestius, 256 ; the 



speech against Vatinius, 257 ; 
attacks the Julian Laws, 260, 
261 ; compelled by Pompey to 
abandon his proposals, 265 ; 
leaves the party of the Nota- 
bles, 266 ff ; the speech on 
the Consular Provinces, 2^joff. ; 
reconciled to Crassus, 275 ; de- 
fends Vatinius and Gabinius, 
278-280 ; becomes on friendly 
terms with Caesar, 280^*. ; his 
speech on behalf of Milo, 288 ; 
made governor of Cilicia, 2go, 
2g5 ; elected augur, 2go (cp. p. 
218) ; his perplexities at the 
commencement of the Civil 
War, 3igff, 330/*. /his in- 
terview with Caesar at For- 
miae, 338 ; joins Pompey, 33g ; 
returns to Italy after Pharsalia, 
341 ; reconciled to Caesar, 343, 
344 ; entertains hopes that 
Caesar will establish a free 
government, 354 ff. ; assists 
the exiled Pompeians, 356 ; 
defends Ligarius, 357 ; the 
oration Pro Mar cello, 358- 
360 ; the panegyric on Cato, 
364 ; divorces Terentia and 
marries Publilia, 365 ; divorced 
from Publilia, 367 ; visited by 
Caesar at Puteoli, 374, 375 ; 
approved of Caesar's assas- 
sination, 373, 376, 3go ; his 
course of action after the 
death of Caesar, 380 ; proposes 
an act of oblivion, 381 ; the 
First Philippic, 3g2 ; meets 
Octavian at Cumae, 3g3 ; the 
Second Philippic, 3g6~40p ; 
heads the movement against 
Antony, 400^". , 424 ; the Sixth 
Philippic, 404-406 ; his de- 
spatches to the Proconsuls, 408, 
4og ; the Fourteenth Philippic, 
410 ; included in the Proscrip- 
tion, 423 ; murdered, 424: — his 
character, 426~42g ; Augustus' 
judgment of him, 428 ; his 
love of literature, 10, 191, 292, 



436 



Index. 



363, 367 ; as an art critic, 57 ; 
his theory of the duties of an 
advocate, 65 ; his affection for 
his children, 77, 199 (cp. pp. 
366-369) ; his vanity, 192 ff ; 
his mercurial temperament, 
238, 362 ; his placable nature, 
275 ; his fondness for a jest, 
362 : — the Letters to Atticus 
and other friends, 2, 428 : — the 
dialogues, Be Oratore, the 
Commonwealth, and the Laws, 
291-294 ; the Brutus and the 
Orator ad Brutum, 363 (cp. 
pp. 11, 12, 14, 20-22): — the 
philosophical writings, 368 ; 
their influence on the modern 
world, 369 

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, son of 
the orator, 77, 312, 368 ; his 
character, 80 ; an officer in 
Brutus' army, 80, 390 ; an- 
nounces to the Senate as 
Consul the defeat and death of 
Antony, 80 

Cicero, Q. Tullius, younger 
brother of the orator, 78, 241, 
342 ; his character, 78-80, 198, 
310 ; author of the Commen- 
tariolum Petitionis, 91 ; said 
to have wavered in the debate 
on the Catilinarians, 143 ; 
made governor of Asia, 197, 
238 ; his differences with Atti- 
cus, 197 ; assaulted by Clodius, 
2 43> 253 ; distinguishes him- 
self as Caesar's lieutenant in 
Gaul, 282 ; lieutenant of his 
brother in Cilicia, 307 ; di- 
vorced from Pomponia, 310 ; 
pardoned by Caesar, 343 ; his 
death, 80 

Cicero, Q. Tullius, the younger 
son of the preceding, 78 ; his 
death, 80 

Cilicia, 79, 84, 252, 290, 297, 
306 ; Cicero's government of, 
290, 295/: 

Cimbri, the, 4, II 

Cingulum, 323 



Cinna, L. Cornelius, 27, 39, 117, 
118, 132 

City-State, the, of the ancient 
world, inadequate to manage 
an empire, 167, 168 

Civil War, between Caesar and 
Pompey, the preparations for, 
314 ff ; the crossing of the 
Rubicon, 170, 322, 330; Pom- 
pey evacuates Italy, 325, 326 ; 
Caesar's campaign in Spain, 
326 ; campaign in Epirus, 
339 ; battle of Pharsalia, 278, 
340, 341, 357 ; murder of 
Pompey, 340 

Claudius, Appius, brother of 
Clodius, 217, 275 ; his mis- 
government in Cilicia, 296 (cp. 
p. 347) ; extorts 200 talents 
from the Cyprians, 299 

Claudius, [Tiberius Claudius 
NeroJ, motion of, in the Cati- 
linarian debate, 148 

Clodia, sister of Clodius, 222 ; 
the " Lesbia " of Catullus, 
3i8, 3*9 

Clodius, [P. Claudius Pulcher,] 
intrudes on the mysteries of 
the " Good Goddess," 172 ; 
brought to trial, 176 ; ac- 
quitted, 177, 185 ; adopted 
into a plebeian family, 216, 
217, 222, 271 ; elected tribune, 
222, 270 ; procures the exile 
of Cicero, 148, 156, note, 
2 3° ff- j gets Cato sent to 
Cyprus, 236 ; quarrels with, 
and insults Pompey, 240, 253 ; 
his proceedings in the last 
months of his tribuneship, 
242 ; assaults Cicero and his 
brother, 253, 255 ; brings 
Sestius to trial, 256 ; his death, 
286 

Clodius, Sextus, 253 

Cluentius, [A. Cluentius Habi- 
tus], defended by Cicero, 65 

Cceparius, adherent of Catiline, 
136 

Collegia, or street-guilds, 230, 346 



Index. 



437 



Colonies, planted by Caesar at 
Carthage and Corinth, 346 

Commonwealth, the, of Cicero, 
(De Republicd), 291-294 

Concord, Temple of, 138, 149 

Corfinium, surrender of, 324, 
328, 330, 333 

Corinth, Roman colony at, 346 

Corn, charge of, committed to 
Pompey (57 B.C.), 247 ; allow- 
ances of, to Roman governors, 
304, 305 ; distribution of, at 
Rome, restricted by Caesar, 
346 

Cornelia, (1) daughter of L. 
Cinna, married to Caesar, 39 : 
— (2) daughter of Metellus 
Scipio, wife of Pompey, 285 

Cornelia gens. See Cinna, Len- 
tulus, Scipio, Sulla 

Cornelius, attempts to assassinate 
Cicero, 124 ; driven into exile, 
190 

Cornelius, C, defended by Cice- 
ro, 63, 64 

Cornelius Nepos, the biographer 
of Atticus, 67, note, 68, 72 

Cornificius, Q., 403, 421 

Coruncanius, T., 7 

Cotta, C. Aurelius, the orator, 
12, 14, 22, 40, 62 

Cotta, L. Aurelius, 243, 377 

Crassipes, Furius, son-in-law of 
Cicero, 261, 275, 291 

Crassus, L. Licinius, the orator, 
11, 13, 34 ; an interlocutor in 
the De Oratore, 13, 291 

Crassus, M. Licinius, leader of 
the Equestrian party, 37 ; de- 
feats Spartacus, 51 ; the rival 
of Pompey, 89 ; proposes to 
enroll Egypt among the prov- 
inces, ib., 113 (cp. p. 251); 
said to have been implicated 
in Catiline's first conspiracy, 
90 ; warns Cicero against Cati- 
line, 120 ; bribes the jurors to 
acquit Ciodius, 176, 177 ; joins 
with Caesar and Pompey to 
form the first Triumvirate, 



202 ff. ; shows his hostility to 
Pompey, 255 ; summoned by 
Caesar to Ravenna, 262 ; elect- 
ed Consul with Pompey, 274 ; 
his death, 285 

Crassus, Publius, son of the Tri- 
umvir, 232, 275 ; his death, 
290 

Crassus, "the Rich," 218 

Cumae, 393 

Curia Hostilia, the, in the Fo- 
rum, 286 

Curio, C. Scribonius, the elder, 
346, note f 

Curio, C. Scribonius, the younger, 
(son of the preceding), 220, 
227, 331, note ; joins Caesar's 
party, 316, 318 ; defeated and 
killed in Africa, 327, 341 

Curius, 378 

Cyprus, 236, 252 ; extortions of 
Appius Claudius in, 299 



De Oratore, the dialogue, 291 

Demetrius, freedman of Pompey, 
anecdote concerning, 309 

Democratic party, the, at Rome, 
12, 27, 28, 53, 89, 92, 99, 102, 
104, 112, 113, 114, 164, 371 

Dertona, 418 

Despotism, evils of , 167, 348 ff %% 

371-373, 425-427 
Diocletian, the Emperor, 349 
Diodotus, the Stoic, 12 
Diphilus, the actor, 221 
Dolabella, Cn. Cornelius, 45 
Dolabella, P. Cornelius, son-in- 
law of Cicero, 301, 341, 342, 
361, 385 ; assumes the Consul- 
ship on Caesar's death, 381 ; 
murders Trebonius, 383, 407, 
417 ; defeated and slain in 
Asia, 383 
Doihitian, the Emperor, 347 
Domitius Ahenobarbus, L., 93, 
note, 263 ; compelled by Caesar 
to surrender at Corfinium, 324, 
328, 330, 333 



438 



Index. 



Drusus Caesar, son of the Em- 
peror Tiberius, 75 

Drusus, M. Livius, (tribune 91 
B.C.), II, 12, 35, 47 

Duelling, unknown in ancient 
communities, 257 

Dyrrachium, 341 ; defeat of Cae- 
sar at, 325, 339, 412 

E 

Earth, the temple of, 381 

Egypt, 89, 102, 104, 113, 209, 
236, 251, 252, 279, 342, 343 # 

Elections at Rome, 91 ff. ; bri- 
bery and corruption at, 276 

Ennius, the poet, 190 

Ephesus, 305 

Epirus, 239, 339, 341 

Eporedia, 420 

Equestrian Order, the, 8, 12, 19, 
25, 53, 54, 83, 86, 106, 178, 
179 ; its constitution and pol- 
icy, 29-38 ; its privileges partly 
restored by Pompey, 53-55, 
164 ; united with the Senate 
by Cicero's policy, 164, 165 ; 
estranged from the Senate, 
185, 188, 204, 275 ; joins the 
party of Caesar, 330 



Fabius Sanga, 133 

Faesulse, 122, 129, 150 

Favonius, M. v 248 

Fibrenus, River, 9 

Flaccus, Lucius Valerius, de- 
fended by Cicero, 225 

Flaccus. See Fulvius 

Flaminian Circus, the, 173 

Flavius, L., introduces an Agra- 
rian Law in Pompey's interest, 
182 ; his contest with Metel- 
lus, 183 

Formiae, 217, 338 

Forum, the, enlarged by Caesar, 
281 

Forum Cornelii, 395 



Forum Gallorum, battle of, 410, 

413 
Forum Julii, 419 
Forum Vocontium, 419 
Freedmen, power exercised by, 

in the Roman world, 309 
Fufius and ^Elius, the Law of, 

213 
Fufius, [Q. Fufius Calenus], a 

partisan of Clodius, 173, 175 
Fulvia Gens, 7 
Fulvia, wife of Antony, 68 
Fulvius, [M. Fulvius Flaccus], 

(Consul 125 B.C.), 155 



Gabinian Laws, conferring the 
command against the pirates 
on Pompey, 83^., 87, 89; 
forbidding loans at Rome to 
subject States, 303 

Gabinius, Aulus, proposes the 
law for the suppression of the 
pirates, 83 ; elected Consul, 
222, 229 ; hostile to Cicero, 
232, 270 ; insulted by Clodius, 
242 ; restores Ptolemy Auletes, 
252; defended by Cicero, 278- 
280 

Gabinius, partisan of Catiline, 
132-134, 136 

Galatia, 305 

Galba, Serv. Sulpicius, (tyranni- 
cide), 371, 413 

Gaul, conquest of, by Caesar, 
117 

Gellius Canus, 74 

Germans, the, driven across the 
Rhine by Caesar, 235 

Gibbon, quoted, 349 

Glabrio, Manius Acilius, sent to 
succeed Lucullus in Asia, 86 

Gladiators, 50 

' 4 Good Goddess," the. See ■ ' Bo- 
na Dea." 

Gracchi, the, 27, 28 

Gracchus, Tiberius Sempronius, 
(tribune 133 B.C.), 182 



Index. 



439 



Gracchus, C. Sempronius, (trib- 
une 123 B.C.), 30, J 54, 155, 
346 

Gratidius, 5 

Grief and pain, manifestations 
of, 238 

H 

Heius, of Messana, 58 

Helvetii, migration of the, 206 

Henna (in Sicily), 55 

Hirtius, A., 361, 383, 384, 393, 
395, 400, 408 ; killed at the 
battle of Mutina, 410, 417 

Horace, the works of, published 
by the Sosii family, 74 ; quoted, 
184 ; an officer in Brutus' army, 

390. 

Horatius, 108 

Hortensius, Q., the orator, 11 
14, 22, 38, 46, 184, 190 ; de- 
fends Verres, 59 ; his friendly 
rivalry with Cicero, 63 ; active 
in promoting the trial of Clo- 
dius, 175, 176 ; advises Cicero 
to withdraw from the city, 

234-237 
Hume, quoted, 411, note 



" Imperator" use of the word, 

307 (cp. p. 401) 
Imperialism, the results of, 167, 

348 ff., 371-373, 425-427 

Imprisonment, probably not re- 
garded as a penalty in the 
Roman Republic, 141, 142, 
note 

Initiative, power of, in the Ro- 
man constitution, 26-28, 53, 
210, 211 

Interamna, 176 

Invective, freedom of, allowed 
at Rome, 257 

Issus, in Cilicia, 306 

Italians, the, 4, 5 ; their feeling at 
the outbreak of the Civil War, 
327, 328, 386 ; their condition 



under the Empire, 349 ; might 
have been organised as a free 
nation by Caesar, 350^*. ; re- 
joiced at Caesar's assassination, 
385-387, 400, 412; needed 
long training in order to make 
good soldiers, 413 ; Italian 
municipia, the, 5, 6, 7, 8 
Italy, the boundary of, extended 
by Caesar, 346 



Janiculum, 108 

Juba, King of Numidia, 341 

Julia Gens. See Caesar 

4 ' Julia Lex Repetundarum , ' ' 
208 ; Julice Leges, 345, note f 

Julia, (1) aunt of Caesar, married 
to Marius, 39 : — (2) sister of 
Caesar, 393 : — (3) daughter of 
Caesar, wife of Pompey, 172, 
notejf, 219, 250 ; her death, 276 

Julian Year, the, 346, note * 

Jupiter Stator, temple of, 124, 

234 
Juvenal, quoted, 164, note 

K 

King, hatred of the Romans for 
the word, 375 {cp. p. 397) 

Knights, the. See Equestrian 
Order 



Labienus, T., 107, 108 ; joins 

Pompey, 323 
Laeca, an accomplice of Catiline, 

190 
Laelius, C, the friend of Scipio 

Africanus, the younger, 166 
Laterensis, M. Juventius, 419 
Law-Courts, the, corruption in, 

276, 277 
"Laws" the, of Cicero, 9, 291- 

294 
Lentulus, [ P. Cornelius Lentulus 
Sura], chief of the Catilinarian 



440 



Index. 



party in Rome, 132, 133, 134, 
135, 137, 138, 148, 225 ; exe- 
cuted, 149, 150, 151, 231 

Lentulus, [P. Cornelius Lentulus 
Spinther], elected Consul, 241 ; 
brings the question of Cicero's 
recall before the Senate, 242, 
243 ; governor of Cilicia and 
Cyprus, 252 ; surrenders to 
Caesar at Corfinium, 324 

Lepidus, M. ^Emilius, 38, 39, 
42, in, 421 ; supports Antony 
on Caesar's assassination, 381 ; 
made Pontifex Maximus, 382 ; 
governor of Northern Spain 
and Southern Gaul, ib. 408, 
409 ; declares for Antony, 419 ; 
joins the Second Triumvirate, 
422, 423 

Lesbia, the, of Catullus, 318, 319 

Lessing, on the manifestations of 
pain and grief among ancient 
and modern peoples, 238 

Letters, opening of, in transit, 
283, note% 

Licinia Gens. See Crassus, Lu- 
cullus, Murena 

Ligarius, Quintus, defended by 
Cicero, 357 

Lightning, in Roman Augury, 
212 ff., 242 

Lilybaeum, 22 

Liris, the river, 9 

Livius. See Drusus 

Livy, quoted, 48 note*, 235 
note, 424 

Luca, the conference of, 70, 263 
ff., 270, 280, 333 

Lucceius, L., the historian, 194, 
370 

Luceria, 324 

Lucretius, quoted, 368 

Lucullus, L. Licinius, 116, 170, 
266 ; his character, 46, 184 ; 
in command against Mithri- 
dates, 46, 49 ; mutiny of his 
troops, 86 ; wishes to oppose 
Clodius by force, 234, 237 

Lupercalia, the, offer of the 
Crown to Caesar at, 375, 397 



M 

Macedonia, 99, 113, 216, 239, 

27?, 340, 39 2 , 420 
Magistrates, weakness of, under 
the constitution of Sulla ; their 
powers, 92, 152 ; not supported 
by an adequate police force, 
116 
Manilian Law, the, 86-89 
Manilius, C, proposes the law to 
grant Pompey the command 
against Mithridates, 86 
Manlius, a confederate of Cati- 
line, 121, 122 
Manlius Torquatus, L. f 6 
Marcellinus, Cn. Cornelius Len- 
tulus (Consul 56 B.C.), 259 
Marcellus, M. Claudius, general 

in the 2d Punic War, 212 
Marcellus, M. Claudius, (Consul 
51 B.C.), 123 ; pardoned by 
Caesar, 358 
Marcius, Philippus L., 102 
Marcius Rex, Q., Proconsul in 

Cilicia, 86, 117 
Marius, C., 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 27, 36, 
37, 39, 40, 107, 114, 117, 118 
Marius, C, the younger, (Consul 

82 B.C.), 67 
Marius, M., a friend of Cicero, 

289 
Marius Gratidianus, 5 
Martial Law, 152, 287, 322 
Martian legion, the, 415 ; de- 
clares for Octavian, 394 ; de- 
cides the battle of Forum 
Gallorum, 413 
Matius Calvena, 361, 383, 384 
Mescinius Rufus, 281, 309 
Messalla, M. Valerius, 174 
Messius, C, (tribune 57 B.C.) 

248, 251 
Metellus, [Q. Caecilius Metellus 
Pius], commander in Spain 
against Sertorius, 46, 49 
Metellus Celer, Q. Caecilius, 
strikes the flag on the Janicu- 
lum, 108 ; sent against Cati- 
line and Manlius, 122, 129 ; 



Index. 



441 



opposed to Pompey, 181 ; his 
contest with Flavius, 183, 210 ; 
speaks against the petition of 
the tax-farmers, 187 

Metellus, [Q. Caecilius Metellus 
Creticus], Proconsul in Crete, 
84 

Metellus Nepos, Q. Caecilius, 181; 
elected tribune, 159, 160 ; em- 
ployed by Pompey to forward 
his ends at Rome, ibiff. / re- 
tires to Pompey's camp, 164, 
322 ; elected Consul, 241 

Metellus Scipio, [Q. Caecilius 
Metellus Pius Scipio], father- 
in-law of Pompey, 285, 286 

Milo, T. Annius, elected tribune, 
241 ; his battles with Clodius, 
244, 253, 255 ; kills Clodius 
in a brawl, 286 ; brought to 
trial, 287 ; killed in an insur- 
rection against Caesar, 329 

Minerva, image of, deposited by 
Cicero in the temple of Jupi- 
ter, 234 

Mithridates, King of Pontus, the 
first war against, under Sulla, 
118 ; the third war against, 
under Lucullus and Pompey, 
46, 86/: 

Molo, Apollonius, of Rhodes, 12, 
21 

Mommsen, on the execution of 
the Catilinarian conspirators, 
151, note; on the proceedings 
of Clodius, 240 ; on the char- 
acterof Caesar, 263, yri,note* ; 
on Caesar's design to make 
himself King, 375 

Money, value of ancient, 30, note 

Montesquieu, quoted, 412, note 

Moore, Life of Byron y quoted, 
294, note 

Mucia, the wife of Pompey, 172, 
notejf 

Mulvian Bridge, 134, 225 

Munatius Bursa, 289 

Municipia, the Italian, 5-8 

Murena, L. Licinius, speech of 
Cicero on behalf of, 94-98, 



131 ; elected Consul, 123, 
130 
Mutina, siege and battle of, 68, 
387, 395, 400, 404, 408, 410, 
413 417 

N 

Nepos. See Cornelius Nepos and 

Metellus 
Nero, the Emperor, 325 
Nervii, the, in Gaul, 282 
Ninnius, L., 241 
Nobles, the. See Optimates 
Numidia, 341 



Octavia, niece of Caesar, 285 
Octavian, [the Emperor Augus- 
tus], 383, 385 ; intervenes 
against Antony, 393, 400, 408 ; 
invested with the imperium* 
401 ; takes part in the battle 
of Mutina, 410 ; his attitude 
toward Antony, 416^*. / seizes 
Rome, 422 ; forms with An- 
tony and Lepidus the Second 
Triumvirate, 422, 423. See 
Augustus 
Octavius, Caius. See Octavian 
Oligarchy, dangers of, 43 
Oppius, C, the friend and agent 
of Caesar, 281, 331, 336, 357, 
361, 374, 383, 384, 395, 396 
Ops, the temple of, 381 
Optimates, the, or Notables, 24 
ff-, 83, 87, 89, 90, 107, 249; 
character of their government, 
43 ; their mistake in not con- 
ciliating Pompey, 174, 183, 
251 ; quarrel with the Knights, 
185 ; offended by Cicero's pro- 
posal to invest Pompey with 
Proconsular powers, 248 ; their 
behaviour to Cicero, 253, 267, 
273 ; become reconciled with 
Pompey, 285, 321 
Orator ad Brutum, the, 363 



442 



Index. 



Paetus, L. Papirius, 306, 353, 366 
Pain and grief, manifestations of, 

238 
Palatine, the, 149, 196, 246 
Pallas, temple of, at Syracuse, 

plundered by Verres, 56 
Pansa, C. Vibius, 361, 383, 387, 

393, 395, 400, 4io, 417 
Papirii. See Carbo, Paetus 
Parthia, expedition of Crassus 

against, 264 ; the Parthians 

repulsed by Cassius, 305, 308 
Parties, at Rome, description of, 

24-44 ; relations of, to elec- 
tions, 91-93 
Patrae, 308 
Paullus, L., ^Emilius, (Consul 50 

B.C.), joins Caesars party, 316, 

3i8 
Petreius, M., defeats Catiline at 

Pistoria, 150 ; lieutenant of 

Pompey in Spain, 326 
Pharsalia, battle of, 278, 340, 

34 1 , 357 

Philippi, battle of, 76, 389 

Philippus. See Marcius 

Philo, the philosopher, 12 

Phocylides, the epigrams of, 250, 
note X 

Picenum, 324 ; birthplace of 
Pompey, 255 

Pilia, wife of Atticus, 291 

Pindenissitae, the, a people in 
Cilicia, 306 

Pirates, the, in the Mediterra- 
nean, 50, 82/*., 236 

Pisaurum, 323 

Piso, [C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi], 
first husband of Tullia, 77, 
291 

Piso, Cn. Calpurnius, assassinat- 
ed in Spain, 90 

Piso, L. Calpurnius, father-in- 
law of Caesar, 222 ; his witti- 
cism on Cicero's bad verses, 
192, note f ; elected Consul for 
58 B.C., 222, 229 ; refuses to 
assist Cicero, 232 (cp. p. 279) ; 



made governor of Macedonia, 
239, 270 

Piso, [M. Pupius Piso Calpurnia- 
nusj, Consul in 61 B.C., 173 

Pistoria, battle of, 150 

Plancius, Cn., 7, 237, 239; de- 
fended by Cicero, 278 

Plancus, L. Munatius, governor 
of Northern Gaul, 382, 408, 
409, 415, 421, 423 ; declares 
for Antony, 419, 420 

Plautus, 177 

Pliny, the elder, quoted, 106 

Plutarch, quoted, 64, 175, 362 ; 
his account of the debate in 
the Senate on the Catilinarians, 
139^"., 147 ; his story of Cice- 
ro's defence of Ligarius, 357 ; 
influence of his Lives upon the 
modern world, 369 ; affirms 
that Cicero was inclined to 
join Octavian, 422 ; asserts that 
Octavian tried to save Cicero 
from the proscription, 423 ; 
relates the anecdote of Augus- 
tus finding his grandson with 
a work of Cicero, 428 

Pollentia, 419 

Pollio, C. Asinius, governor of 
Southern Spain, 382, 387, 408, 
409, 416 ; joins Antony, 419 

Pompaedius Silo, 47 

Pompeia, divorced wife of Caesar, 
172 

Pompeius, [Cn. Pompeius Stra- 
bo], father of the Triumvir, n, 

4i 
Pompeius, [Cnaeus Pompeius 
Magnus], gains distinction un- 
der Sulla, 41, 42 ; his charac- 
ter and objects, 42, 85, 87, 89, 
170, 174, 215, 250, 252, 340, 
397 ; subjugates Spain, 49 ; 
ends the Slave War, 51 ; re- 
fused a triumph, 52 ; his first 
Consulship, 53, 61 ; suppresses 
the pirates, 83-85 ; the Agra- 
rian Law proposed by Rullus 
directed against, 103 ff. ; Pom- 
pey and the Catilinarians, 119, 



Index. 



443 



159 ; disbands his army, 171 ; 
his overtures rejected by the 
Notables, 175 ; the Senate re- 
fuse to confirm his settlement 
of Asia, 180; joins the Tri- 
umvirate, 202 ff. ; becomes un- 
popular, 220, 221 ; abandons 
Cicero, 232, 234 ; hostility of 
Clodius to, 240, 253 ; agrees 
to Cicero's recall, 241 ff. ; the 
difficulties of his situation, 248 
ff. ; refuses to divorce Julia, 
250 ; becomes unfriendly to 
Crassus, 255 ; meets Caesar 
and Crassus in conference at 
Luca, 263 ff. ; made sole con- 
sul, 287 ff. ; legislates against 
Caesar's interests, 289, 314 ; 
leaves Rome at the outbreak 
of the Civil War, 323 ; evacu- 
ates Italy, 325, 326 ; defeats 
Caesar at Dyrrachium, 325, 
339, 412 ; vanquished at Phar- 
salia, 340 ; murdered in Egypt, 
ib. 

Pompeius, [Cn. Pompeius Mag- 
nus], elder son of the Trium- 
vir, 352, note 

Pompeius, [Sextus Pompeius 
Magnus], younger son of the 
Triumvir, 382, 413 

Pomponia, (sister of Atticus), 
married to Q. Cicero, 78, 197 ; 
divorced, 310 

Pomponius, Cnaeus, a magistrate 
in 90 B.C., 12 

Pontus, 86 

Posidonius, Stoic philosopher, 
194 

Postumius, 383 

Priam, (Homer, II. xxiv. 506), 
76 

Princeps, the, in Cicero's Com- 
monwealth, 293, 294, 304 [cp. 
p. 408) 

Prison of the Kings, 149 

Procilius, 276 

Provinces, the, pillaged by their 
Roman governors, 44, 45, 296 ; 
mode of their administration , 



297 ; their condition under 
Caesar, 347 

Ptolemy XII., (Alexander II.), 
90, 102 

Ptolemy XIII., (Auletes), 90, 
102, 209, 236, 251, 252, 279, 
340 

Ptolemy XIV., 340 

Ptolemy, King of Cyprus, 236 

"Publicans," the, or Farmers- 
general, at Rome, 32, 33, 186, 
187, 209 ; Cicero's dealings 
with, in Cilicia, 298 

Publilia, second wife of Cicero, 

365, 367 
Puteoli, a fashionable watering 
place, 23, 292, 375 



Quintilian, quoted, 64 
Quirinus, the deified Romulus, 
376 

R 

Rabirius, C. , trial of, 107, 108 
Ravenna, 262 

Representative Government, un- 
known in the ancient world, 

167 

Rome, contested elections at, 91, 
276 ; degraded state of the 
populace, 115 ; condition of, 
under Pompey's government, 
276 ff. ; depression of the 
Romans under the Empire, 
371-373 J hatred of the Ro- 
mans for the name of King, 
375 (fp» P- 397) \ divided in 
opinion regarding the assassi- 
nation of Caesar, 385 ; the Ro- 
man constitution, 26 ff., 152, 
168 ; Cicero's admiration of, 
293 : — the Roman Empire ; or- 
ganisation of, by Caesar, 3$>ff. 
Romulus, the legend of, 376 
Roscius, Q., the actor, 14 
Roscius, Sextus, (1) the elder, 
murdered, 15 : — (2) son of 



444 



Index. 



the preceding, defended by 
Cicero on a charge of parri- 
cide, 1 5 # 
Roscius Otho, L., 106 
Rubicon, the river, 170, 322, 330 
Rullus, P. Servilius, agrarian 
law proposed by, 99^"., 113 



Sacramentum, the, or military 
oath of obedience, 40, 41 

Sacred Way, the, 149, 253, 255 

Salamis, in Cyprus, proceedings 
of Scaptius at, 302^. 

Sallust, his account of the con- 
spiracy of Catiline, ill ff. t 
136, 140, 147; quoted, 153 

Sappho, statue of, taken from 
Syracuse by Verres, 56 

Sardinia, 347 

Saturnalia, 135, 137, 306 

Saturninus, L. Apuleius, (tribune 
IOO B.C.), II, 31, I07, 108 

Saufeius, a comrade of Milo, 
289 

Scaevola, Q. Mucius, the augur, 
13 ; appears in the De Oratore, 
291 

Scaevola, Q. Mucius, Pontifex 
Maximus, 13 ; his good gov- 
ernment in Asia, 298 

Scaptius, agent of Marcus Brutus 
in Cyprus, 302 ff. 

Scaurus, M. ^Emilius, (Consul 115 
B.C.), 5 

Scaurus, M. iEmilius, eldest son 
of the preceding, 95 ; bribery 
practised by, 276, note 

Scipio, [P. Corn. Scipio Africa- 
nus Major], 27, note, 56 

Scipio, [P. Corn. Scipio ^Emilia- 
nus Africanus Minor], 166 ; 
appears in Cicero's treatise on 
the Com7?ionwealth , 292, 293 

Sempronii. See Gracchi 

Sempronian Laws, of C. Grac- 
chus, (1) against putting Roman 
citizens to death, 146, 154, 
155 f ( 2 ) gi ym g privileges to 



knights, 30 ; (3) De Provinciis 
Consularibus , 270 

Senate, the Roman, powers of, 
26-28, 92 ; character of its 
government, 43 ; its defects 
as an institution, 168 ; degra- 
dation of, under Caesar, 353 ; 
the " ultimum Sena t us Con- 
sultuni" 120, 122, 153 

Seneca, quoted, on Cicero's self- 
laudation, 192 

Sertorius, Q., 49 

Servilius, [P. Servilius Vatia Isau- 
ricus], 46 

Servius. See Sulpicius Rufus, 
Serv. 

Sestius, Publius, elected tribune, 
241 ; wounded in a street fray 
with Clodius, 243 ; defended 
by Cicero, 256 

Shakespeare, quoted, 372, 389, 
391, 402, 423 

Shorthand, invention of, 139, 
312 ; Cicero's speeches taken 
down in, 288 

Sibylline Oracles, used to further 
private and public ends, 132, 
.135, 252, 377 

Sicily, misgovernment of Verres 
in, 55 ; enjoyed the privilege 
of trying local cases in the 
local courts, 297 ; granted 
Latin rights by Caesar, 346 

Silanus, Decimus Junius, elected 
Consul, 123, 130 ; proposes 
the execution of the Catilinari- 
ans, 140, 144 ; after Caesar's 
speech explains away his pro- 
posal, 142, 147 ; announces 
that he will support Nero's 
proposal for adjournment, 
148 

Slave-labour on the plantations 
of the Roman nobles, 50 

Slave war, the, 50, 51 

Slaves, trained by Atticus as lit- 
erary assistants, 72 ; influence 
of, in the Roman world, 309 

Social War, the, 4, 6, II, 13, 35, 
41,47 



Index. 



445 



Sosii, the family of the, the pub- 
lishers of Horace's works, 74 

Spain, 49, 326 ; collection of the 
taxes in, 346 

Spartacus, heads the insurrection 
of the slaves, 50 

Spongia, 177 

Statilius, partisan of Catiline, 
132, 134, 136 

Statius, the confidential servant 
of Q. Cicero, 310, 311 

Suetonius, quoted, 317 

Sufenas, 276 

Sulla, Faustus, son of the Dicta- 
tor, 292 

Sulla, L. Cornelius, 11, 13, 14, 
.17, 18, 22, 36, 38, 52, 67, 76, 
106, in, 112, 114, 116, 132, 
375, 423 ; Sulla and Caesar, 
39 ; the war with Mithridates, 
118 ; the constitution of Sulla, 
22, 28 ff., 35, 36, 41, 44, 53, 
60, 164 

Sulla, Publius, defended by Ci- 
cero, 190 

Sulla, Servius, an accomplice of 
Catiline, 190 

Sulpicius Galba. See Galba 

Sulpicius Rufus, P., 11 ; put to 
death by Sulla, 13, 67, 76 

Sulpicius Rufus, Serv., 46, 130, 
358 ; joins the party of Caesar, 
33°, 337, 370 ; made governor 
of Greece, 370 ; his letter of 
consolation to Cicero on the 
death of Tullia, 371 

Syracuse, 56 

Syria, 252, 270 



Taxes, the, farmed by the 
Knights, 30, 31, 32, 298 ; in 
the Roman Provinces, 300 ; 
under the Empire, 350 

Terentia, wife of Cicero, 68, 77, 
235, 291, 342 ; her character, 
77 ; divorced, 365 

Teutones, 4 

Thalna, 177 



Theatres, movable, invented by 
Scaurus, 95 

Theramenes, opinion of Aristotle 
upon, 365, note * 

Vhessalonica, Cicero in exile at, 
237, 239 

Tiberius, the Emperor, 75 

Tigranes, King of Armenia, 46, 
240 

Tiro, M. Tullius, the favourite 
freedman of Cicero, 308-314, 
inventor of shorthand, 312 ; 
collects and publishes Cicero's 
letters, 313, 314 (cp. p. 428) 

" Transpadanes," the, granted 
the Roman franchise by Caesar, 
346 ; enlist under Decimus 
Brutus, 386 

Trebonius, C, tyrannicide, 371, 
383, 407, 417 

Triarius, defeated by Mithri- 
dates, 86 

Tribunate, the, restrictions im- 
posed on, by Sulla, 28, 39 ; 
powers restored by Pompey, 
53#.,6l 

11 Tributum" the, in the Roman 
Provinces, 300 

Triumvirate, the First, 201 ff,, 
262 ff. See Caesar, Crassus, 
Pompey 

Triumvirate, the Second, 422. 
See Antony, Lepidus, Octa- 
vian 

Tullia, daughter of Cicero, 77, 
2 77» 339 \ married to Piso, 77, 
291 ; meets her father at 
Brundisium on his return from 
exile, 245 ; married to Furius 
Crassipes, 291 ; to Dolabella, 
301, 342 ; her death, 366, 369 

Tullius, Aufidius (orAttius), 3 

Tullus Hostilius, 108 

Tusculum, 7, 423 

Tyrannicide, ancient ideas con- 
cerning, 390 

Tyrannio, arranges Cicero's li- 
brary, 72 

Tyrrell, Professor, quoted, 62, 
287, note\, 319 



446 



Index. 



u 


cient armies, 412, 413 ; the 




veterans of Caesar join Octa- 


Umbrenus, 133 


vian, 414^*. 


Utica, suicide of Cato at, 364 


Veto, the, in the Roman consti- 




tution, 26-28, 210, 211, 233; 


V 


the religious veto, 211 ff. 




Vettius, L., pretends to disclose 


Vada Sabatia, 418 


a conspiracy of the Notables, 


Valerii. See Flaccus, Messalla 


227 


Vargunteius, attempts to assas- 


Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of 


sinate Cicero, 124 ; driven into 


Agrippa by Caecilia Attica, 75 ; 


exile, 190 


married to Tiberius, ib % 


Varius, Q., tribune go B.C. 12 


Virgil, quoted, 58 


Varro, M. Terentius, 241, 292, 


Volaterra, 182 


341 1 354 


Volcatius Tullus, joins Caesar, 


Vatinius, P., 209, 256, 257, 263, 


336 


278, 280 


Volscians, 3, 6 


Veneti, the, in Gaul, 263 


Voltaire, anecdote of, 32 


Ventidius Bassus, P., 418 


Volturcius, T., adherent of Cati- 


Vercellae, 420 


line, 133 ; betrays his asso- 


Verres, C, extortions of , 45, 347 ; 


ciates, 134 


prosecuted by Cicero, 55 ; re- 


Volumnius Eutrapelus, 74, 366 


tires into exile, 60 ; killed by 




order of Antony, 57 


Z 


Vestal Virgins, 138, 172 




Veterans, importance of, in an- 


Zeno, the Stoic, 131 




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